Cher has filed for a conservatorship over her son Elijah Blue Allman’s finances, court documents reveal.
Cher’s petition to become her 47-year-old temporary conservator is due to Allman being “currently unable to manage his assets due to severe mental health and substance abuse issues,” according to the filings. If the judge grants the conservatorship, Cher will receive distributions owed to Allman from the trust fund set up for him by his late father, Gregg Allman, for his benefit.
“Elijah is entitled to regular distributions from the Trust, but given his ongoing mental health and substance abuse issues, Petitioner [Cher] is concerned that any funds distributed to Elijah will be immediately spent on drugs, leaving Elijah with no assets to provide for himself and putting Elijah’s life at risk,” the file reads.
It continues, “[Cher] loves Elijah immensely and has always acted with his best interests in mind.”
This news follows reports earlier this year that Cher had hired four men to kidnap her son to keep him from reconciling with his wife, Marie Angela King. In a statement to People, Cher responded to these claims by denying them and confirmed the situation was concerning her son’s battle with drug addiction.
“I’m not suffering from any problem that millions of people in the United States aren’t,” Cher told the publication. “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 to be there for them.”
The kidnapping allegations were outlined in a court declaration signed by King and were made public as part of the couple’s ongoing divorce case that was first filed by Allman — a year before the alleged abduction — in November 2021.
Allman has publicly discussed his addiction issues before, sharing that he was just a preteen when he first got involved with heavy drugs. Since the early 2010s, Allman has been in and out of recovery stints, and as his relationship with sobriety has fluctuated, so has his relationship with Cher. The pop singer has also openly addressed her family’s struggle with drug abuse, which dates back to her own father’s use of heroin. Allman’s father, Gregg Allman, also similarly battled drug addiction.