Another coincidence:

-"In 1995 she [Cher] signed with Warner Bros. which became her main record company. The first release with Warner was her twenty-first studio album It's a Man's World (1995) which was less successful than its predecessors."

-January, 1998: Sony Bono killed in 'accident'.

-"Her twenty-second studio album Believe released at the end of 1998 was heralded as her comeback album and became her best-selling studio album ever, having shipped around 20 million units worldwide."

Looks like the death of Bono sure helped Cher's ability to release a hit album.

wikipedia.org/wiki/Cher_albums_discography