When Cher and Val Kilmer were dating in the early 1980s, they developed specific nicknames for each other.

In an interview with PEOPLE in 2020, the “Believe” singer discussed her friendship with the Top Gun star, who died of pneumonia on Tuesday, April 1, at the age of 65.

“He’s never called me Cher.” He always calls me Ethel,” Cher, 78, revealed of Kilmer, with whom she dated for a few years after meeting at a birthday celebration in the early 1980s.

The aliases were established so that the pair would not have to “yell” each other’s true names.

“Val didn’t want to yell Cher, I would rather not yell Val, so we just called ourselves Sid and Ethel,” she goes on. “And we also called ourselves two other things, Vallus Maximus and Cherus Reprimandus.”

Vallus Maximus and Cherus Reprimandus were appropriate for their interpersonal dynamics. “It means exactly what it says. “It was just part of who I was in the household,” the Burlesque actress explained.

After their breakup, the pair remained friends, and Cher stated that they would communicate by “email” and “text.”

“We don’t see each other too often.” In 2020, she expressed her reluctance to visit his studio due to crowds and embarrassment. “He often asks me to come and do something, and I say, ‘I can’t, Vallus, I simply can’t.’ Alternatively, he may just say, “Come on, Cher.”

Cher opened up about their connection in 2021, saying it began as a pleasant one.

“We became friends because we were constantly laughing at the same things.” “He would sleep over, and it was just a friendship [at first],” she recalled, adding that things eventually got amorous. “It went from madly in love and laughing hysterically to respecting each other’s ability.”

“We had unbelievable times and then put up with some times when they weren’t [that way] because we were both alpha males,” Cher said, hinting at the reason for their split. “We were both individuals, and neither of us was going to give up on that.”

After Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015, Cher was a source of comfort for him, and he even stayed in her guest house as his health deteriorated.

“One night, I awoke vomiting blood all over the bed, like a scene from The Godfather.” I instantly prayed and dialed 911. “Then I informed my hostess,” he wrote in his biography in 2020. “Cher stepped in and stepped up.”

Following the announcement of Kilmer’s death, Cher honored her late friend on social media.

“VALUS,” the celebrity launched an X post on April 2″ “Will miss you.”

“You were funny, crazy, a pain in the ass, a great friend, and kids [love] you,” Cher said, noting that Kilmer was “brilliant” as Mark Twain, whom he portrayed in 2014’s Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn and the 2016 one-man show Mark Twain: Citizen Twain.

She closed her statement by stating that he was “brave” during his “sickness.”