The Innocence of Chastity
The very public spawn of Sonny and Cher tells a very intimate story in her new book, The End of Innocence.
by Heather Findlay
When Chastity Bono published Family Outing in October, 1998, she proved that the sometime-musician, sometime-professional gay activist was also an effective writer. In The End of Innocence, Bono treads new, more autobiographical terrain. The honest, unflinching memoir tells the story of Bono's great love, Joan Leslie Stephens, a beautiful Los Angeleno party girl and unofficially "kept woman"; who is twenty-three years Chas's senior. Just as it blooms, however, the unlikely romance is blighted by the onset of cancer in Joan's lymphatic system. Meanwhile, Bono's rock and roll band Ceremony gets snagged in the gears of Geffen Records' star-maker machinery; and suffocated under the imposition of Bono's closet door. Heather Findlay talks to Bono about the book's tragic themes, her next work, and her "thing" about her uni-monikered mom.
Girlfriends: Loved your book. I had no idea it was a love story.
Chastity Bono: Thanks. Glad to hear you liked it; this is the first interview I've done, so you'll get some fresh answers.
Girlfriends: But I really wanted to see you as the frontdyke in an eighties hair band. Why no pictures?
Bono: I'm sure somebody's got some pictures somewhere, but I don't have any. I wouldn't even know how to go about getting them anymore. Geffen [Records, Bono's label] doesn't exist anymore, but I'm sure they had publicity stills or something.
Girlfriends: Memo to Chastity from her lesbian fans: put photos in the next book!
Bono: (laughs) Okay.
Girlfriends: But seriously, you paint a wonderful portrait of Joan, the love of your life, in The End of Innocence. She comes off as so beautiful, so generous, so romantic. Did you intend the book to be a tribute to her?
Bono: Yes. That was always the intention. I'm glad it comes across that way. It's not an exaggeration; that's how she was. I thought that people, other than the people she knew in her life, should know about her.
Girlfriends: You're also pretty relaxed about giving intimate details about your love life, including the fact that Joan was really good in bed and that she expected certain things back from you. Is it natural for you to be open like that?
Bono: I'm a fairly honest person. I haven't really had a choice in the matter. I became a public figure before I ever wanted to be one, so it's kind of like trying to make the best of it. But [sex] was a really important part of our relationship, and I couldn't have told the story correctly without revealing a certain amount of the sexual nature of our relationship.
Girlfriends: Another thing I loved about the book was the quirkier details you provide. Like how one of your girlfriends in high school was kind of ugly, but you liked the smell of Agree conditioner in her hair.
Bono: Well, this is the second book I've done, and it's a really different book. Details like that help make a book interesting. It's not a conscious [effort].
Girlfriends: The end of the book, when Joan gets really sick with lymphoma, just broke my heart. What was it like for you to go back and tell that story again?
Bono: I'd been living with the story for a very, very long time. I was finally starting to come out of my depression right around the time I started writing the book. So it was not a re-living of the experience. Like I said, I lived with this for a long time. Writing the book was really helpful to me on a personal level. It helped me finally to put this whole thing in its proper place. It is no longer upsetting to me on a daily basis.
Girlfriends: I know it's a cliché, but was writing the book healing for you?
Bono: Yes, I think so. I didn't anticipate that. But it turned out to be healing.
Girlfriends: I got so angry at the injustice of it, that you were only able to enjoy about a year of Joan as her lover before she died. Did you?
Bono: Very much so. I felt very cheated. It was very difficult.
Girlfriends: You write on several occasions that Joan was the love of your life. What is it like for your current girlfriend, for you to have memorialized this relationship in print?
Bono: It was something I was working on before I even met Stasie. She has been incredibly supportive and proud of me. She's read the book; she likes it. She probably looks at it a little differently than anybody else.
Girlfriends: Because she knows you better than anyone else?
Bono: Yes, that's true. I don't know if she can read it with quite so much of the romance that other people would read in it. But she understands what a large part that played in my life.
Girlfriends: Of course, the book is also about the rise and fall of Ceremony, the band you started with your ex, Rachel. Do you still play music?
Bono: Not really, no. Every once in a while just for myself I'll pick up my guitar. But I left with a fairly bad taste in my mouth about the whole record industry and everything.
Girlfriends: Have you ever considered doing a band again, only differently this time?
Bono: Not really. I kind of realized after everything happened, and Joan was gone, our contract was gone. When it came to start again, I realized I didn't love it enough to go through it all again.
Girlfriends: One of the most interesting things in your account of Ceremony is the difficulty you and Rachel faced because you had to be closeted. If you could go back and do Ceremony again, would you have done that differently?
Bono: Yes, definitely. I would have. It limited so many things.
Girlfriends: You could have played dyke venues, for example.
Bono: Exactly. We would have had some type of a built-in audience. We didn't end up playing those types of venues until literally the very end. Our last gig was at Dinah Shore [Women's Weekend]. But by then it was too late.
Girlfriends: I knew you played Dinah, but I didn't know it was your last gig.
Bono: Yeah, it was.
Girlfriends: Do you still go to Dinah Shore?
Bono: No, I kind of grew out of it.
Girlfriends: How old are you?
Bono: Thirty-three.
Girlfriends: You're much younger than I am, and I go every year!
Bono: Well, I don't drink, also. And once I got really active in the gay community, I don't really do things for fun that much in it anymore. I wouldn't have much privacy at an event like that anymore.
Girlfriends: In The End of Innocence, when you start taking Joan's painkillers, we're given a taste of the problem you eventually developed. Will the next book tell the story of how you dealt with your addiction?
Bono: No, not just that. The story takes off where this one left off, but I'll also go into my childhood.
Girlfriends: Can you give us any teasers?
Bono: Well, like I said, it will go into my childhood. It's been something people have been very interested in, but not something I've been ready to share up until this point. In Family Outing, I only talked about stuff that had to do directly with my coming-out process. But that's a really different book, much more of a how-to. I interviewed about a dozen families for it, as well.
Girlfriends: You describe yourself in the book as a "punk tomboy" at thirteen. You love sports, and you're attracted to feminine women. But I noticed that one word that doesn't appear in The End of Innocence is butch. Do you not think of yourself in that language?
Bono: Yeah, I don't really think in that language. I think of dyke more than butch, though I know that's a little broader. I could definitely be categorized as butch, and I don't have a problem with it. But it's just not a word I use a lot. Like queer. That's another word I don't really use, don't really like. I think it's more in use in a younger generation; it wasn't something that my generation really owned.
Girlfriends: I'm going to put my Freud hat on: Joan was twenty-three years older than you when you became lovers, just about the same age as your mom...
Bono: Exactly my mom's age.
Girlfriends: Exactly? Well that lends itself to my question. So yes, she was your mom's age; in fact, she was your mom's friend. And Rachel, your first serious girlfriend, had terrible stage fright, just like your mom's famous problem. I'm sure it's occurred to you that you have a little mommy thing.
Bono: [Laughs] It's easy to say that with Joan because of the age difference thing. But Joan couldn't have been more the opposite of my mother. But she was very nurturing, very unconditional, very idyllic. I also think I learned a lot from her.
Girlfriends: I was going to say, if you were offended by my question, that you shouldn't worry. The whole world is in love with Cher, so you're in good company.
Bono: Right. But like I said, the two of them couldn't have been more opposite. Joan never had kids, but did tend to be drawn toward younger people, always. It's hard for me to mix, or to use the word "maternal" in the context of a sexual relationship. My brain doesn't really go there.
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