Cher is turning back time and paying tribute to her ex-boyfriend Val Kilmer.
The “Believe” singer, 78, took to X on Wednesday to mourn the “Top Gun” star, whom she dated in the 1980s.
“VALUS,” she wrote, using her nickname for Kilmer. “Will miss u, U Were Funny, crazy, pain in the (expletive), GREAT FRIEND, kids 💜 U, BRILLIANT as Mark Twain.”
The singer added that Kilmer, who played Mark Twain in the one-man show “Citizen Twain,” was “BRAVE” during his illness. The “Batman Forever” actor died Tuesday from pneumonia after previously battling throat cancer, his daughter told The New York Times and The Associated Press. He was 65.
Cher was ‘madly in love’ with ex Val Kilmer
Cher and Kilmer dated from 1982 to 1984 after meeting at a birthday party that Meryl Streep threw for the singer.
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In 2021, she told People magazine that she and Kilmer had “unbelievable times and then put up with some times when they weren’t (that way) because we were both Alpha males. We were both individuals and neither of us was going to give up on that.” But she noted that they remained friends after the end of their relationship. “I don’t know how we stayed friends, we just did,” she said. “We didn’t try. We just were.”
Val Kilmer, ‘Top Gun’ and ‘Batman Forever’ star, dies at 65
“I loved him — and I love him,” she told People. “I (just wrote to him), I said, ‘Valus Maximus, I’m sorry if I did anything to piss you off or hurt your feelings. I love you and your documentary was all things … I love the things that pissed me off, the things that made me hysterical, amazed, hurt, astonished, etc. You are brave and beyond brilliant.”
Speaking with Howard Stern last year, the Grammy winner shared that she was “madly in love” with Kilmer and that he was the one who ended their relationship.
“Sometimes, you’re only meant to stay with someone so long,” she said.
Val Kilmer called Cher the ‘funniest woman I ever met’ in memoir
In his memoir “I’m Your Huckleberry,” Kilmer wrote that he was initially “not motivated to meet” Cher because he was “sure we had nothing in common.” But they ended up connecting, and he described the singer as the “funniest woman I ever met.”
“I ended up driving her home on the back of my Harley through the streets of Manhattan,” he recalled in the book. “She loved the Harley. We both loved laughing and went on doing so for well over a year.”
In a 1984 People magazine article, published while she was dating Kilmer, Cher described the actor as “sensitive” and “artistic,” though she said their relationship was at times “too intense and hot.”
Val Kilmer’s ‘Batman’ co-star Jim Carrey remembers ‘generational talent’
Tributes to Kilmer have also poured in from some of his past collaborators, including Jim Carrey, who starred as the Riddler opposite Kilmer’s Batman in “Batman Forever.”
“I’m remembering Val Kilmer today with great admiration for him as a man and as a generational talent who left us an enviable legacy of indelible acting performances,” Carrey said in a statement shared with USA TODAY. “His greatest artistic achievements were rivaled only by the grace and courage with which he endured his life’s most challenging moments. Wishing his family so much love.”
Contributing: Barbara VanDenburgh
