Cher’s decision this week to file for a conservatorship of her son, Elijah Blue Allman, comes after the entertainment legend says she watched him struggle for years with drug addiction, culminating in a tumultuous six-month period earlier this year, when the 47-year-old reportedly lived at the landmark Chateau Marmont and regularly worried hotel staff with his “drugged-out,” “strung-out” appearance.
Staff at the gothic-looking Chateau Marmont, which looms over Los Angeles’ Sunset Boulevard, regularly reached out to Cher because of her son’s condition, the Daily Mail reported in September. The actor and singer finally hired a caretaker to look after him in September as he continued to lived at the luxury hotel, perhaps mindful that a drug-addicted John Belushi tragically died there of a heroin and cocaine overdose in 1982.
Actress-singer Cher and son Elijah Blue attend the premiere of the film “Blow” March 29, 2001 at the Mann’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, CA. (Photo by Vince Bucci/Newsmakers)
“Virtually every morning and afternoon Elijah could be seen in front of the hotel on the sidewalk either leaning against the wall or sitting on the sidewalk smoking,” a staff member told the Daily Mail in September. The staff member said the cigarette appeared to be “dipped in something,” and Allman usually passed out before even finishing the cigarette. “He looked strung-out and messy, like he was a homeless person living on the streets.”
Allman’s time at Chateau Marmont ended in September, the Daily Mail reported. On Sept. 14, the day that Cher planned an intervention, staff found Allman lying face down on the pavement leading to the hotel entrance. He appeared “lifeless.” Staff picked him up and took him inside. Two days later, police arrived and escorted Allman out of the hotel, and he was taken for another stint in rehab, the Daily Mail said.
This week, Cher filed documents this week, seeking conservatorship of her son, with whom she has long had a contentious relationship. In the documents, viewed by TMZ, People and other outlets, the 77-year-old entertainer said a conservator for her son “is urgently needed” because he is “currently unable to manage his assets due to severe mental health and substance abuse issues.”
The documents noted that Allman is due to receive assets before the end of the year from a trust established by his father, the late rocker Greg Allman who died 2017. The documents also said that the “Moonstruck” star has “worked tirelessly to get Elijah into treatment and get him the help he needs.”
“(Cher) loves Elijah immensely and has always acted with his best interests in mind,” the documents said, adding that she has been “unable to discuss his preferences concerning the appointment of a temporary conservator” because of his “current mental and physical health issues.”
In seeking to be Allman’s sole conservator, Cher is trying to sideline his estranged wife, Marieangela King, whom she apparently sees as a destructive presence in her son’s life. Cher alleges that King is not fit to be his conservator because her “tumultuous relationship” with her son “has been marked by a cycle of drug addiction and mental health crises,” People also reported.
Cher also has long had a contentious relationship with King, especially after King accused the Oscar and Grammy winner of hiring four men to kidnap Allman in late 2022, just as, King said, she and Allman were trying to “reconcile” their marriage, People reported.
LOS ANGELES – APRIL 19: Musician Elijay Blue Allman arrives at Korn’s Family Values Tour 2007 Kickoff Party at Hollywood Forever Cemetery on April 19, 2007 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
The kidnapping allegations surfaced in the media in September and come from documents King filed back in December 2022, which are related to her ongoing divorce from Allman. He had filed for divorce in 2021 after eight years of marriage. King’s documents said that she and Allman tried to reconcile in November 2022, by spending 12 days alone together in a New York hotel room. On their last day together, their wedding anniversary, King alleged that four men came to their hotel room and tried to kidnap Allman.
According to King’s documents, she claimed that “one of the four men who took (Allman)” told her that Cher hired them. She also said at the time: “I am currently unaware of my husband’s wellbeing or whereabouts. I am very concerned and worried about him.” In October, King alleged in court documents that her famous mother-in-law was “interfering” with Allman’s health care, while the Daily Mail reported that he was said to be in a rehab facility in Pasadena,
Allman is Cher’s second child after she had her son, Chaz, with her first husband, Sonny Bono. Cher and Greg Allman, of The Allman Brothers Band, married in 1975. They welcomed their son, Elijah Blue, in 1976. But by 1979, Cher divorced Allman because he, too, struggled with drug addiction and she didn’t want her kids to be around it, People reported.
Allman was long estranged from his father, while he accused his mother of effectively abandoning him by sending him to a boarding school when he was 7 years old. “When you go to boarding school at 7-years-old, it’s kind of hard to feel like you’re not being shunned,” Allman said in a 2014 interview with Entertainment Tonight.
Allman began using drugs early, at age 11. He told ET he would come home from boarding school on the weekends to New York City and he and his friends “would go up to Harlem and get into all kinds of trouble.” He said, “It’s actually shocking to think about myself at like 11-years-old buying drugs in Harlem. It’s pretty crazy. It seemed normal at the time.”
Allman also said he eventually began using heroin, saying that he was “just looking to escape all the things in my past and, that’s when you turn to those kind of drugs, you know heroin and opiates.”
Like his parents, Allman also became a musician, receiving his first guitar from Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, one of his mother’s ex-boyfriends, according to The Messenger. By the time he was a teenager, Allman went on tour with his mother as a guitarist. He also pursued his own career in music, forming the industrial-metal band Deadsy in the mid-1990s.
The band recorded and toured before going on hiatus in 2007, around the time that Allman fell ill and was diagnosed with Lyme disease, The Messenger reported. Allman told the Daily Mail in 2014 that he sought treatment for Lyme disease for years. He also said he did not believe that his mother was as supportive as she could have been.
“It was very hard for my mother to accept my illness,” Allman told the Daily Mail. “The going notion for a lot of years was that it was imaginary because that’s just easier. That’s not to say she wasn’t supportive because she was, but in that bitter cold when you really don’t know if you’re going to wake up and be alive tomorrow you need extra from everybody. You absolutely need unconditional parental love in those dark hours, that was lacking from that direction.”
Allman also explained how he and his mother had a falling out over his marriage to King, who goes by the name Queenie in the rock band KING. Allman and King met on a blind date in Germany, where he was seeking treatment for his Lyme disease, and they eloped after his mother refused to acknowledge or congratulate him on getting engaged to her. He told the Daily Mail: “I’ve always been the black sheep of my family. The reason being we just have different value systems and we just have a different mentality and that clashes a lot. We have lots of ups and downs and right now isn’t the best time.”
In October, Cher opened up about her relationship with her son in an interview with People. First off, she denied “the rumor” that she hired anyone to kidnap him, but she declined to comment further. However, she confirmed that her conflicts with her son were related to his addiction issues.
“I’m not suffering from any problem that millions of people in the United States aren’t,” Cher told People about watching her son’s years-long struggle with substance abuse. “I’m a mother. This is my job — one way or another, to try to help my children. You do anything for your children. Whenever you can help them, you just do it because that’s what being a mother is. But it’s joy, even with heartache — mostly, when you think of your children, you just smile and you love them, and you try.”
