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Chaz Salvatore Bono (born Chastity Sun Bono;<!-- Birth name is included in the lead because Bono is also notable under that name. See MOS:DEADNAME.--> March 4, 1969) is an American writer, musician and actor. His parents are entertainers Sonny Bono and Cher, and he became widely known in appearances as a child on their television show, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour.
Chaz Bono is a trans man. In 1995, while then presenting as a woman, and several years after being outed as lesbian by the tabloid press, Chaz publicly self-identified as a lesbian in a cover story in a leading American gay monthly magazine, The Advocate. Bono eventually went on to discuss the process of coming out to oneself and others in two books: Family Outing: A Guide to the Coming Out Process for Gays, Lesbians, and Their Families (1998) includes his coming-out account. The memoir The End of Innocence (2003) discusses his outing, music career, and partner Joan's death from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Between 2008 and 2010, Bono sought out a gender transition. In a June 2009 two-part CBS TV Entertainment Tonight feature, Chaz explained that his medical transition had started a year prior. In May 2010, he legally changed his ID to match his gender and name.
Early life
thumb|left|upright|Chaz Bono with Sonny Bono in 1974
Bono was born in Los Angeles, California, the only child of Cher and Sonny Bono of the pop duo Sonny & Cher, stars of a TV variety show on which the young child often appeared. Bono was named after the film Chastity, which was produced by Sonny and in which Cher (in her first solo role in a feature film) played a bisexual woman. Through his mother, Bono is of Armenian, Irish, English, German, and Cherokee ancestry. He is of Italian descent through his father.
Bono was enrolled at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City. Bono came out to both parents as a lesbian at age 18. In Family Outing, Bono wrote that, "as a child, I always felt there was something different about me. I'd look at other girls my age and feel perplexed by their obvious interest in the latest fashion, which boy in class was the cutest, and who looked the most like cover girl Christie Brinkley. When I was 13, I finally found a name for exactly how I was different. I realized I was gay."
Ceremony
Bono began a short music career in 1988 with the band Ceremony, Critical reception of the album was lukewarm, with Roch Parisien of AllMusic describing Hang Out Your Poetry as a mildly psychedelic take on early 1990s pop, "pleasant, accessible, well-produced ear-candy that's ultimately toothless".
The songs "Could've Been Love" and "Ready for Love" were released as singles from the album. Sonny and Cher also recorded backing vocals for the track "Livin' It Up" on the album.
LGBTQ activism
right|thumb|Bono at the 2012 [[GLAAD Awards]]
In April 1995, Bono came out as a lesbian in an interview with The Advocate, a national gay and lesbian magazine. The 1998 book Family Outing detailed how Bono's coming out "catapulted me into a political role that has transformed my life, providing me with affirmation as a lesbian, as a woman, and as an individual." In the same book, Bono reported that Cher, who was both a gay icon and an ally of LGBTQ communities, was quite uncomfortable with the news at first and "went ballistic" before coming to terms with it: "By August 1996, one year after I came out publicly, my mother had progressed so far that she agreed to 'come out' herself on the cover of The Advocate as the proud mother of a lesbian daughter."
Transition
In mid-2008, Bono began undergoing a physical and social transition from female to male. This was confirmed in June 2009 by his publicist, GLAAD and the Empowering Spirits Foundation were quick to offer praise and support for the announcement. Bono's legal transition was completed on May 6, 2010, when a California court granted his request for a gender and name change. Bono made Becoming Chaz, a documentary film about his transition that premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. The Oprah Winfrey Network acquired the rights to the documentary and debuted it on May 10, 2011.
In September 2011, he became a competitor on the 13th season of the U.S. version of Dancing with the Stars, paired with professional ballroom dancer Lacey Schwimmer. The duo was eliminated on October 25, 2011. This was the first time an openly transgender man starred on a major network television show for something unrelated to being transgender.
His book, Transition: Becoming Who I Was Always Meant to Be was published in 2012, making him the first person of Armenian descent to publish a memoir about being an openly transgender man.
Personal life
On March 8, 2026, Bono married Shara Blue Mathes at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles. The two had known each other since they were teenagers, but did not reconnect and begin dating until January 2017.
Filmography
Film
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Year !! Title !! Role !! Notes
|-
| 1994
| Bar Girls
| Scorp'
|
|-
| 2004
| Fronterz
|
|
|-
| 2016
| Dirty
| Jerry the Hoarder
|
|-
| 2019
| 3 from Hell
| Digby Neville
|
|-
| 2020
| Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen
| Himself
| Documentary film
|-
|2020
|Reboot Camp
|Herbert
|mockumentary
|-
| 2023
|The Bell Keeper
|Sheriff Carlson
|
|-
|2024
|Little Bites
|Paul
|Also executive producer
|}
Television
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Year !! Title !! Role !! Notes
|-
| 1972–1977
| The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour
| Himself
| 32 episodes
|-
| 1975
| Cher
| Himself
| Episode 2.14
|-
| 1997
| Ellen
| The Moderator
| Episode: "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah"
|-
| rowspan="2" | 2011
| Becoming Chaz
| Himself
| Documentary film
|-
| Dancing with the Stars
| Himself
| 6 episodes
|-
| 2012
| Degrassi: The Next Generation
| Himself
| Episode: "Tonight, Tonight: Part 2"
|-
| 2013
| The Secret Life of the American Teenager
| Himself
| Episode: "To Each Her Own"
|-
|2014
|RuPaul's Drag Race
| Himself/Guest Judge
| Episodes: "Queens of Talk", "Reunited!"
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2016
| The Bold and the Beautiful
| Reverend Rydale
| 5 episodes
|-
| American Horror Story: Roanoke
| Brian Wells (Lot Polk, re-enactment)
| 4 episodes
|-
| Where the Bears Are
| Gavin Kelly
| 3 episodes
|-
|2017
| American Horror Story: Cult
| Gary K. Longstreet
| 8 episodes
|-
|2020
| Curb Your Enthusiasm
| Joey Funkhouser
| Episode: "The Spite Store"
|-
|2022
| The Guardians of Justice
| Whittaker
| 7 episodes
|}
Books written
- Family Outing (with Billie Fitzpatrick) (1998). Little, Brown and Company. pp. 272.
- The End of Innocence: A Memoir (with Michele Kort) (2003). pp. 232.
- Transition: The story of how I became a man (with Billie Fitzpatrick) (2011). New York: Dutton.
- Transition: Becoming Who I Was Always Meant to Be (with Billie Fitzpatrick) (2012 paperback). Plume. pp. 272.
Notes
References
Works cited
External links
- [ AllMusic entry on Bono's band Ceremony]