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Cher has asked a court to grant her a temporary conservatorship over her son Elijah Blue Allman, claiming that the 47-year-old cannot control his finances because of his struggles with mental health and substance abuse.
In a petition filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Wednesday, the singer requested temporary oversight of the money her son receives from a trust fund set up by his father, the late musician Gregg Allman. According to court documents obtained by NBC News, the singer says she’s concerned that the money “will be immediately spent on drugs, leaving Elijah with no assets to provide for himself and putting Elijah’s life at risk.”
The filing accuses her son’s estranged wife, Marieangela King, of “actively” hindering her son “from getting clean and sober or receiving mental health treatment that he desperately needs.” Elijah Allman filed for divorce from King in 2021, but they are still legally married.
King, Cher and an attorney for Allman did not immediately respond to NBC News’ requests for comment, but Allman told The Associated Press: “I am well, and able, and of sound mind and body.”
In September, Variety reported that King had accused Cher of having Allman kidnapped last year to try to prevent the couple from reconciling. Cher told People that the allegation wasn’t true, while adding about her son and 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.”
Conservatorships are messy affairs, as we’ve seen from Britney Spears’ long battle to free herself from her father’s grip, and former NFL player Michael Oher’s very public dispute with the Tuohy family. Conservators can exert broad control over a person’s finances, and, often, their personal autonomy, as was the case with Spears.
But the system is deeply flawed. An investigation by BuzzFeed News in 2021 found that it’s a “vast, lucrative, and poorly regulated industry that has subsumed more than a million people.”