Cher Says Kidnapping Plot Allegations About Son Are 'Not True' but 'You Do Anything for Your Children' (Exclusive)

For the first time, the singer responds to rumors she hired men to forcibly remove her son from a hotel room

Cher is speaking out about her relationship with son Elijah Blue Allman.

Last month, a report surfaced that the music icon allegedly hired four men to kidnap her younger son, 47, from a New York City hotel room in an apparent intervention in November 2022; Elijah’s estranged wife, Marieangela King, made the claim in divorce documents she filed last December that recently surfaced.

Regarding the abduction allegations, Cher tells PEOPLE “that rumor is not true” and declines to comment further.

But she confirms that the private family matter is related to her son’s addiction issues.

“I’m not suffering from any problem that millions of people in the United States aren’t,” Cher says of watching her son’s yearslong struggles 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 to be there for them.”

In the court documents, King, 36, alleged that the superstar hired the men to remove Elijah — whose dad is the late rocker Gregg Allman — from their hotel room because they were trying to “reconcile” their marriage and she was concerned for her son’s well being.

King, who is known professionally as Queenie, claimed they had spent “12 days alone together from November 18-November 30, in New York, working on [their] marriage” at the time of the incident. In the documents, she also claimed “one of the four men who took [Allman]” told her that the Grammy winner hired them. 

Cher and Elijah's relationship has weathered ups and downs over the years, but the singer says she'll always be there for her kids.

"I could fill a . . . I don’t even know, something gigantic with what I don’t know [about parenting],” she says. “I just keep trying.”

For more on Cher, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere Friday.

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