“He couldn’t do that shit with me.”

Cher has caught a glimpse of Phil Spector’s dark side.

Years before the music producer fatally shot Lana Clarkson at his home in 2003 — for which he was sentenced to 19 years to life in prison, where he died — Spector pulled a gun on the “If I Could Turn Back Time” singer when she confronted him with releasing music she recorded without her consent.

He knew “he couldn’t do that to me,” Cher told Yahoo Entertainment about the 1974 incident.

Cher had known Spector for years and first met him in 1962, when she was 16. She describes in her new book: Cher: The Memoir, Part One – that after leaving Sonny Bono, she hoped to take her solo music to a new level and reconnected with the creator of ‘Wall of Sound’. Spector was producing John Lennon’s at the time Rock ‘n’ roll – a cover album of songs from the late ’50s and early ’60s – and asked Cher and Harry Nilsson to sing background music.

When they arrived at the studio, the former Beatle stormed out after an argument with Spector. Not wanting to waste their time, Spector asked Cher and Nilsson to record vocals for a Martha and the Vandellas song called “A Love Like Yours”, which Lennon could later listen to and learn from. It was not intended to be released because Cher and Nilsson were under contract with different record companies.

A few weeks later, Cher received a call from her label saying that Spector had illegally released the recording in Europe, in violation of her contract. Her friend drove her to Spector’s house in LA to confront him. She said she greeted him with a hug, but asked what he was thinking because this was clearly against her contract. She said Spector became irritated and told her he could do whatever he wanted.

Cher claimed Spector then grabbed a revolver she hadn’t noticed on a pool table and twirled it around his fingers. Furious, she said she unleashed a verbal tirade on him and warned him not to mess with her or her music anymore. She said Spector apologized and she got out of there. In the car, she recalled the disturbing scene to her friend, but she had the feeling he was doing it for show, not to hurt her.

When asked if she had ever told that story before putting it in her book, Cher replied, “Well, to friends, but not to people. What would I do – just tell that story?”

She said the reason he withdrew was “because I knew him when he was young and when he was a little crazy.” “I think he was 21 or 22 and I was very close to him in the strangest way because I didn’t take anything from him. I just didn’t do that.”

Cher first met Spector, who by age 21 was a self-made millionaire, through an early friend, Nino Tempo, a singer and musician who worked for Spector at Gold Star Studios. From day one, when they were first introduced in 1962, they didn’t put up with his nonsense.

“I met him with his best friend [Tempo] and the first thing he said to me [in French] was, ‘Will you sleep with me?’” she recalled.

Cher said Spector didn’t think she would understand his crass proposal or have an answer, but she responded — also in French: “Yes, for money.” And from then on we had a very strange relationship.

Their lives intersected again soon after when Cher started dating Bono that same year. He worked on Spector’s production team and took Cher to the studio, and she never tolerated Spector’s nonsense.

“Sonny used to get so upset because he would say, ‘Please, please, don’t do this. He’s my boss,” Cher said. “But it didn’t stop me.”

Spector ultimately gave Cher her first musical breakthrough. When singer Darlene Love missed a recording session in 1963 when her car broke down, Spector asked Cher to fill in as a background singer. It was her first time behind the microphone, and although she almost fainted, she subsequently became a regular backup singer for him. She became a Grammy, Emmy and Oscar winner.

In February 2003, Clarkson, a model and actress with supporting roles, appeared Scarface And Fast times at Ridgemont High – was fatally shot in Spector’s home.

She was a nightclub hostess at the House of Blues in LA, met the producer and agreed to go to his mansion in the LA suburb of Alhambra for drinks. An hour later, at 5 a.m., Spector’s limousine driver said he heard a shot and saw Spector leaving the house with a gun in his hand. Spector allegedly told the driver, “I think I just shot her.” Clarkson’s body was found in the foyer of Spector’s home.

Spector later told authorities it was an accidental suicide, but he was charged with manslaughter. He was tried twice – there was a hung jury in 2007 – and was found guilty in 2009. Both trials included testimony from other women who claimed he threatened them with weapons, including veteran music talent coordinator Dianne Ogden, who said he stalked her. his house with an Uzi. She ran for her life, to her car, and never saw him again.

Spector maintained his innocence in Clarkson’s death until his death in 2021.

Spector was also accused of abuse by his second wife, singer Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes. She wrote in her 1990 memoir that Spector kept a gold chest in their basement and told her he would kill her if she tried to leave him. She claimed he kept her locked in their mansion and subjected her to psychological abuse, but she escaped barefoot in 1972 with the help of her mother.

“I knew if I didn’t leave at that moment, I would die there,” she wrote.

Cher: The Memoir, Part One is out now.