Cher Suggests Sonny in Hell; Paralympian Wins Marathon Wheelchair Race
WHITFIELD: Cher can't seem to forgive her late husband, Sonny Bono. During a recent Q&A; session on Facebook to promote her first album in 12 years, the singer and actress was asked a lot of questions about the husband she divorced back in 1975. Sam asked this, "Hi, Cher. If Sonny Bono were still alive today but you only had a minute to talk to him, what would you say?" Cher's response, "How hot is it where you just came from?" Ouch. Her feelings are nothing new. Just listen to this interview from just a few months ago.</s>CHER, PERFORMER AND ACTRESS: When I was with Sonny, I really wasn't -- I was more like -- when I met him I was 16, so it didn't bother when until I was about 20-something, you know, 23. And it started to chafe at me. I really wanted to do what I wanted to do, say what I wanted to say. I didn't want to be shackled to someone else's opinion. And Sonny was very much, my opinion is your opinion. So when I decided to leave him, I just thought I have to get back to myself.</s>WHITFIELD: Wow. So just last month Cher told Reddit that Sonny's ghost played tricks on her at home. Sonny died in 1998. The New York City Marathon is being held for the first time in two years. Last year the race was cancelled because of Hurricane Sandy. Just a short time ago two Kenyans took first place in the men's and women's divisions. Our Alexandra Field joins us with more on the victories. So Alexandra, tell us more about the two winners and the grand prize.</s>ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fred, for the men, Kenya's Geoffrey Mutai won the race with a finish time of 2 hours, 8 minutes and 23 second. For the women it was Kenya's Priscah Jeptoo with a time of 2 hours 25 minutes and 7 seconds. They each won $100,00 for that. They ran amid the 47,000 runners who set out to try and cross the finish line at New York City's Marathon. It is estimated a crowd of 2.5 million people are cheering them on along a course that spans the city's five boroughs. It took 2.5 hours just to get all those runners over the starting line. Seven hours into the race now, many of them are still out there, grinding out those 26.2 miles.</s>WHITFIELD: That is a bear of a race. So a Paralympic track medalist apparently made history as well. Tell us about her story.</s>FIELD: Well, one of the most moving moments of the race, Tatiana McFadden is paralyzed from the waist down. She was born with spina bifida. She won the race in today's wheelchair division. She also won her races this year at the marathons in London, Boston and Chicago. Today's victory makes her the first athlete ever to win the grand slam. That's all four major marathons in a single season, right, Fred? Wow.</s>WHITFIELD: That is incredible and then tell me about security and how it impacted the race at all today.</s>FIELD: That's just the reality of today's race. Given the attacks at the Boston Marathon back in April, runners faced a stricter security measure state. So did the crowd. But for runners in particular, they had to adjust to a few changes. They were told this year that they couldn't run with backpacks, they couldn't have water packs on their backs. They couldn't wear face masks. They couldn't wear those bulky costumes. People in the crowd, they were also told that if they brought large bags or backpacks those things would be subject to search. The goal here, just to make this a safe race day for everyone, Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, very good and glad it was. And congrats to the winners and really congrats to all of the racers. Anyone who attempts it and anyone who actually crosses the finish line, pretty extraordinary feat. Thanks so much, Alexandra. An Atlanta man has broken the record for the fastest cross-country drive ever. Ed Bolian drove cross-country from Manhattan to L.A. in just under 29 hours. How did he do that? And he stopped by our set this morning and talked to Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul on "NEW DAY."</s>CHRISTI PAUL, CNN HOST: What was the toughest part for you?</s>ED BOLIAN, RECORD-BREAKING CROSS-COUNTRY DRIVER: Really the preparation. I spent literally almost 10 years dreaming about it and thinking about different ways to solve all of the problems that come up with trying to do something like this.</s>BLACKWELL: So you said that there were laser jammers and also bedpans. Were there pit stops at any time?</s>BOLIAN: Well, whenever anybody asks you, whenever you talk about driving across the country this fact, the question, is what about the cops? And the question is, where do you use the bathroom? And so fortunately the bedpans and bottles and things like that were not required for such a use. We stopped three times for gas and about five times on the side of the road.</s>PAUL: And nobody every -- no arrests, no tickets, no nothing?</s>BOLIAN: No, you got to think, safety and avoidance of all of these things was obviously a top priority. But we had three people fully devoted to making sure that didn't happen.</s>BLACKWELL: So you now had this record, 2,850. Are you going to try again to break it?</s>BOLIAN: No, no, no.</s>BLACKWELL: OK. Once is enough.</s>BOLIAN: Exactly, exactly. I'm good here.</s>WHITFIELD: Pretty extraordinary. Well, glad that it ended and no one got hurt. All safe. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, NBC's "Saturday Night Live". The show caught a whole lot of grief over not having any black women on its cast. And now producers are dealing with it as only "SNL" can, with humor. That's coming up next.