Cher: 'I was crazy about Tom Cruise'

Cher has admitted that she was "crazy" about Tom Cruise when they were romantically involved.

The couple dated in the mid-1980s, when 23-year-old Cruise had just risen to fame on the back of hit movie Risky Business. They are thought to have met at a White House fund-raising event and were together for several months.

Cher, who was 39 at the time, told chatshow host Oprah Winfrey that the relationship could have been serious if they had not been so busy with work.

She described the actor as an "awkward" young man, saying: "He was shy. He said he felt like such a boob in school and nobody talked to him. We went on a date once for dinner in a New York restaurant and the waitress was from his old school.

"He told me she never talked to him back in school, but now he was recognised he got all her attention."

She added: "It could have been a great big romance because I was crazy for him."

The pair went their separate ways when Cruise met Mimi Rogers, who became his first wife in 1987. Cher is currently single after splitting with boyfriend Rob Camilletti almost 15 years ago.