Cher denies hiring men to abduct her son: 'That rumor is not true'

Cher is breaking her silence on allegations that she hired men to abduct her adult son Elijah Blue Allman last year.

"That rumor is not true," the singer and actress, 77, told PEOPLE in a new interview. Cher declined to comment further on the allegations but said the private family matter was related to her musician son's struggles with substance abuse and addiction.

"I'm not suffering from any problem that millions of people in the United States aren't," she said. "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."

Cher added, "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."

Vinnie Zuffante/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Elijah Blue Allman and Cher

Allman's estranged wife, Marieangela King, 36, accused Cher of abducting Allman, 47, in a court filing last year; the documents were recently surfaced amid King and Allman's ongoing divorce.

King claimed that she and Allman reconciled in November 2022, when the alleged abduction took place. "Four people came to our hotel room and removed [Allman] from our room," King alleged in the filing, adding that she was "told by one of the four men who took him that they were hired by [Allman's] mother."

The December filing also claimed that King had not been allowed to "see or speak to" Allman since August 2022, and that he was "currently in lockdown" at an undisclosed treatment facility. "I am currently unaware of my husband's wellbeing or whereabouts," King said in the document. "I am very concerned and worried about him. I understand his family's efforts to make sure he is well, and I want what is best for my husband."

Allman, whose father was the late musician Gregg Allman, has been vocal about his addiction in the past, revealing that he was exposed to drugs at age 11. "I did have some close calls and some moments of really feeling at the edge of mortality," he told Entertainment Tonight in 2014. "I always kind of kept it a little bit safe but you never can do that. Even though you think that in your mind, of course the wrong things can happen. The wrong combination of things can happen and you can just slip into the abyss. I knew it was wrong and I knew that I was very unsatisfied with life at that point."

At the time, Allman said he had been sober since 2008.

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