Inside Chaz Bono's Life Today

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Chaz Bono has lived in the national spotlight since he was just a toddler. As the only child of legendary pop duo Sonny Bono and Cher, his career in showbiz began with dozens of appearances on their '70s variety series, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. However, the well-liked actor, activist, and author, who was biologically assigned female at birth but identifies as male, later paved his own path in Hollywood.

After initially coming out as lesbian in 1995, Bono used his platform to raise awareness as an LGBTQ+ activist, wrote the books Family Outing and The End of Innocence, and navigated the reality TV circuit, before publicly announcing his gender transition in 2009. His turn on Dancing With the Stars two years later broke new ground in transgender representation on television, and the multi-hyphenate shared his experiences in the Emmy-nominated documentary Becoming Chaz. So, what has this transgender star been up to since becoming who he was always meant to be? Here's an inside look at Chaz Bono's life today.

According to The Advocate, Chaz Bono's groundbreaking run on Dancing With The Stars in 2011 "marked the first time an openly trans man starred on a major network television show for something unrelated to being trans." While the former reality TV star finished in seventh place, one of Hollywood's first openly transgender stars was undeniably born. While helping to center the fight for LGBTQ+ rights within the public's consciousness, Bono's dance competition stint was more specifically credited for paving the way for additional transgender representation in the media. 

To name just a handful of examples, Laverne Cox later broke new ground with her critically acclaimed portrayal inmate Sophia Burset on Orange Is the New Black, while Jazz Jennings documented her journey as a young trans woman on I Am Jazz. Meanwhile, former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner landed her own E! series with I Am Cait, and scripted series like Transparent and Pose raised the bar when it came to telling transgender stories on television. However, according to a study performed by GLAAD, of the 857 characters in scripted broadcast primetime shows in 2018, only 26 were transgender. So, here's hoping this trend in on-screen LGBTQ+ representation continues to improve across the board.

While Bono always dreamed of becoming an actor, he put these plans on the back burner for decades due to his discomfort in playing female roles prior to transitioning. Instead, he spent much of his career pursuing music, LGBTQ+ activism, and various reality TV gigs, before shifting focus and giving acting another shot. In 2016, Bono scored two breakout roles on the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful and American Horror Story: Roanoke at the age of 47.

"If I was born male, I would have done what so many of my classmates [did] who ... went on to college and then started their careers and are still working," Bono told The Advocate in 2018. "But I couldn't do that." While telling Pride Source that he's "always hustling" to land roles, the TV star noted, "It's a weird thing, because on the one hand I try to emphasize that being transgender doesn't affect my acting at all ... but what it did affect was that, unfortunately, I started doing what I love so late in life because it happens to be a profession where you have to be comfortable and in the right body to do it."

After being assigned female at birth, Bono spent the first 39 years of his life living as a male inside a woman's body. However, that doesn't mean he gets the opposite sex as well as some might suspect. "I always felt like the male from the time I was a child. There wasn't much feminine about me," he told Entertainment Tonight in 2009 (via The Advocate). He later explaining to Oprah Winfrey on Where Are They Now? that despite getting "a closer look at women" than most men early on in life, he instead developed a "very different perspective."

"I don't think I understand women particularly better ... not the emotional side that men, that we don't get, that we are just, like, scared of. No, I really don't. I never had that," Bono continued. "Even before, [I] would find myself in relationships doing something that I had no idea what I'd done that really upset my girlfriend and I didn't know why, in the same way that men do."

For a number of years, Bono publicly struggled with weight gain due to his longtime experience with gender dysphoria, which the NHS defines as "a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there's a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity." This led to the actor developing a negative self-image, disinterest in taking care of himself, and a battle with prescription drug addiction, which he kicked in 2004 (via After Ellen).

Standing at 5 ft. 5 1/2 in., Bono weighed in at 250 pounds following his gender transition. Finally feeling comfortable in his body, he publicly vowed to lose 50 pounds in November 2012, before shedding an impressive 75 pounds by the following year with the help of The Doctors. "I would have never been able to do it before [transitioning]," he revealed on Oprah: Where Are They Now? in 2016 (via People). "I was too disconnected from my body, and the dysphoria that I had with my body was too much to be able to have cared enough to anything like that."

The 2018 Broadway musical The Cher Show naturally depicts the titular pop star's life, but surprisingly leaves Chaz Bono largely absent from the plot. According to Rolling Stone, our guy only appears on stage briefly as a baby, but is referred to as "Chaz" and he/him pronouns. "It's as if Chaz's life has no bearing on Cher's," wrote critic Peter Marks of The Washington Post, while NewNowNext's Michael Musto wondered, "Is Broadway trying to eradicate trans existence, like Trump is?" Amid the confusion over this artistic decision, a production spokesperson told The New York Daily News, "The creative team behind The Cher Show feel it's Chaz's story to tell and we wanted to make sure the moments we do have in the show are handled with great sensitivity." 

As of this writing, Bono himself has yet to publicly comment on the matter. However, he did visit the show in early January 2019, and it looks as though there are no hard feelings. "Had an amazing trip to NYC!" he wrote in part on Instagram at the time, adding, "Went to see ... #chershow, so amazing!"

Chaz Bono's transition didn't just break new ground in transgender representation in Hollywood and encourage him to finally pursue his dreams as an actor. On a deeply personal level, the experience allowed this multi-talent to finally live his life openly and authentically while outwardly presenting himself as his true self.

"It's not offensive [to say I lived life as a girl], but it would be wrong," Bono said on Oprah: Where Are They Now? in 2016. "I didn't live my life as a girl. I lived my life as a male inside a female body for a long time. But at this point, I really feel just like a 46-year-old man who got here in a slightly different way than most men do." Noting that transgender people are sometimes incorrectly "thought of as we're trying to hoodwink other people," the actor went on to argue, "No, no, we're actually... that wasn't who I was. Now I'm who I am. This is who... this is me." He added, "That was the lie. This is the truth."