Who Is Cher Dating?

Love is a many-splendored thing, especially when you’re gawking at it from the outside. In this column, we’ll be examining the celebrity couples that give us hope for our own romantic futures and trying to learn what we can from their well-documented bonds.

I feel strongly that a May-December relationship is only as mature as the youngest person in it, which is why it so reliably bums me out when the Leonardo DiCaprios of this world are spotted cavorting with women in their 20s. I’m not trying to be a Church Lady—a before-my-time SNL reference I never would have gotten if I hadn’t briefly dated an older comedian, by the way—but if your whole thing is dating people who have only recently gained the legal right to drink, I do have certain questions about your maturity level.

That said, I do think a May-December relationship can work, as long as the balance of power is relatively equal: Just take 78-year-old Cher and her 38-year-old on-again, off-again music-executive boyfriend Alexander “AE” Edwards. I mean, okay, nobody in this world has as much power as Cher—but at least the May component in this case is, you know, a grown adult. On Tuesday, the two were spotted making a date night out of the 2024 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, and forgive me for doing celebrity Kremlinology based solely on paparazzi photographs, but...the romantic vibes have never seemed stronger. (Is demurely kissing your much-older girlfriend on the cheek technically PDA, actually? Unclear, but I like it.)

Alexander “AE” Edwards and Cher at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on October 15.

A 40-year age gap is definitely nothing to sneeze at (that’s the combined age of, like, two of Leonardo DiCaprio’s girlfriends!), and I obviously don’t actually know the couple in question, but I do kind of love the general badassery of Cher spending her late 70s with a younger man. After first getting together in the fall of 2022, she and Edwards were (allegedly) briefly engaged before breaking up—and while holding hands on a red carpet isn’t binding proof of a rekindled flame, I’m still desperately hoping we get a full-on wedding out of these two before Cher’s 80th birthday. Cher has, after all, given the LGBTQ+ community so much; the very least we can do is stay up all night to watch coverage of her nuptials to a cute 30-something guy, royal-wedding style.