Music producer Phil Spector once threatened Cher with a gun

"Put that f---ing gun down," Cher recalls telling Spector, who was found guilty of second-degree murder in 2009.

Even before he was convicted for second-degree murder, music producer Phil Spector was threatening women with a gun.

In her newly released self-titled memoir, Cher details her time working with Spector, including the time he threatened her with a revolver. Cher began her career as a back-up vocalist on several records that he produced. Eventually, Cher and Spector parted ways as she forged a career as a solo artist.

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But circa 1974, shortly after she completed her album Dark Lady, Cher approached Spector about partnering on a new album on the advice of then-boyfriend David Geffen. During this time, Spector asked Cher and Harry Nilsson to occasionally sing back-up on John Lennon's Rock 'n' Roll album. But one night, he asked them to lay down a "guide vocal" on the Martha and the Vandellas song, "A Love Like Yours" for Lennon to listen back to.

However, Spector turned around and released the single illegally in Europe, violating both Cher and Nilsson's record contracts. Cher decided to drive to Spector's house and immediately confront him about the release. When she arrived, he met her in a room with a pool table.

"I went in and gave him a hug," she writes. "Then I told him, 'Phillip, you know you can't do this. Harry's on one label, I'm on another, and you put it out under yours. What were you thinking?'"

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Spector didn't take well to Cher's questioning. "He became agitated and got kind of smart with me — a little too smart, like he was trying to intimidate me," she continues. "He told me he could do whatever he wanted. He said our record companies could sue him if they didn't like it. Then he picked up a revolver that I hadn't previously noticed lying on the green felt."

Cher, however, refused to be intimidated. "Staring at him in fury, as he twirled it around his fingers, I said, 'Don't f--- with me, Phillip!'" she recounts. "'You can't pull that s--- on me, you a--hole. This is me, Cher, okay? You've known me since I was sixteen and you're going to try to do this with me? Put that f---ing gun down and promise me you'll never do anything like this s--- with my music again, okay?'"

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Spector did apologize as Cher was walking out, and she writes that she didn't believe he would have used the gun on her.

Even if she didn't feel in immediate danger, the memory does display an early predilection for threatening women with a firearm. In 2003, Spector shot actress Lana Clarkson in the mouth, killing her. He tried to claim it was "accidental suicide," but after one mistrial, he was retried in 2008 and convicted of second-degree murder in 2009, as well as using a firearm in the commission of a crime. He spent the remainder of his years in prison and died in 2021.