If she could turn back time, Cher might be with Tom Cruise — whom she dated when he was just a 23-year-old emerging star, she tells Oprah Winfrey.

In a taped episode of "Oprah" set to air next week, the 61-year-old singer tells Winfrey she was "crazy" about Cruise, and dishes on a particular "long night" they spent together.

Cher, who is publicizing her upcoming Las Vegas shows, said it could have been a "great big romance because I was crazy for him."

She said the Hollywood megastar, now 45, was at the time finding it hard to cope with life in the spotlight. According to Cher, the relationship would have continued had it not been for the demands of their Hollywood careers.

"He was shy," she said in an excerpt of the interview published by Sky News. "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 recognized he got all her attention," Cher said.

The affair is understood to have ended when Cruise met Mimi Rogers, who became his first wife. He separated from Rogers after three years in 1990, going on to marry Nicole Kidman, whom he then split from in 2001, and then Katie Holmes in 2006.

Click here to read the full Sky News report.