Cher’s troubled son, Elijah Blue Allman, has apparently found a way to fend off his mother’s efforts to gain conservatorship over his estate.
The 47-year-old musician son of Cher and her ex-husband, the late rocker Gregg Allman, has apparently joined forces with his estranged wife, Marieangela King, to call off their divorce. Us Weekly reported that Allman and King filed documents Tuesday to dismiss their pending divorce proceedings. This legal move comes six days after Cher filed documents of her own seeking conservatorship of her son by claiming that he is “substantially unable to manage his own financial resources due to severe mental health and substance abuse issues.”
An attorney for King, who goes by the name Queenie in the rock band KING, suggested that Cher shouldn’t concern herself with her son’s affairs. Regina Ratner told Us Weekly that King, who married Allman in 2013, “has always been (Elijah’s) rock” and “has only been a stabilizing force for him.”
Ratner also said that Allman is “very capable of managing his own affairs in his estate, and in periods where he is not as capable, (Marieangela) is more than capable.”
King’s record label, Verdict, also issued a statement on her behalf, saying that her “presumed rights as Mr. Allman’s lawful wife have been largely usurped by others involved in his so-called medical care,” making “caring for Mr. Allman extremely difficult.”
The statement also alleged that Allman was “coerced under false pretenses” in October “into participating in an alternative medicine regimen,” Us Weekly reported. He was then “thrown into a lockdown facility in Mexico,” where he was forced to sleep “behind a locked cage with six other individuals, under an imposed Mexican conservatorship.”
According to King’s record label, she “recently risked her own life to ensure her husband’s safe return” to the United States after he was “inhumanely held against his will in a foreign country,” Us Weekly reported.
King’s relationship with her famous mother-in-law has long been contentious. In September, Cher was embroiled in allegations that she tried to have her son kidnapped and taken away from King, just as, King said, they were trying to “reconcile” their marriage.
King made the kidnapping allegations in documents related to their pending divorce; Allman filed for divorce in 2021. According to the allegations, which surfaced in a Daily Mail report in September, King claimed that Cher hired four men to kidnap Allman in late 2022.
King’s documents said that she and Allman tried to work on their marriage by spending 12 days alone together in a New York hotel room. On their last day together, their wedding anniversary, King said that four men came to their hotel room and tried to take Allman away.
Allman previously said in interviews that his mother didn’t welcome his marriage to King. Allman said he and King met on a blind date in Germany, where he was seeking treatment for Lyme disease, and they eloped in 2013 after his mother refused to acknowledge or congratulate him on getting engaged to her.
Not surprisingly, Cher has a different take on King’s role in her son’s life. In an interview with People, the award-winning singer and film star first denied “the rumor” that she hired anyone to kidnap him, but she declined to comment further.
However, Cher confirmed that her conflicts with her son were related to his addiction issues. When she filed for conservatorship on Dec. 27, she tried to sideline King because she apparently sees her as a destructive presence in his life.
In seeking to be named Allman’s sole conservator, Cher alleged that King was 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.”
Cher’s documents noted that Allman is due to receive assets before the end of the year from a trust established by his father, 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.”
Whatever is going on between Cher and her daughter-in-law, previous reports indicate that Allman is in bad shape. Cher’s decision to file for conservatorship comes after she said she watched him struggle for years with drug addiction, culminating in a tumultuous six-month period earlier this year, when he 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, often 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.
“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.
According to the statement by King’s record label, Allman ended up in a rehab facility in Mexico.
Allman is Cher’s second child after she had her son, Chaz, with her first husband, Sonny Bono. Cher and Gregg Allman, of The Allman Brothers Band, married in 1975. They welcomed their son, Elijah Blue, in 1976. But by 1979, Cher divorced Gregg 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 became a musician like his parents, but he also began using drugs early, at age 11. He 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.”
In an interview with People, Cher said, “I’m not suffering from any problem that millions of people in the United States aren’t. I’m a mother. This is my job — one way or another, to try to help my children.”
“You do anything for your children,” she continued. “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.”