Here We Go Again...Another Celebrity Conservatorship Case

Cher moves to help her son recover

Yep. Another famous one-name celeb is about to immerse herself in the often smarmy and predatory world of conservatorship. Move over Britney, this time its Cher who has turned to the courts to help her save her son, Elijah Blue, from the drugs and destructive behavior which have defined his life. On January 5 Cher is expected to file a petition temporary conservatorship of Elijah in a California court. I’m here to tell you temporary in this type of court almost always turns into a permanent situation. Once a judge establishes any kind of conservatorship (called guardianship in most states) it is next to impossible to escape the arrangement.

Cher may be relegating her son to forever live under court control. I just hope she was fully informed about the pitfalls of conservatorship. After many years investigating this routinely exploitative system I sure hope Cher realizes what a morass she may be signing up for! Does she realize that this ill-regulated and largely unsupervised system is populated by financial predators just waiting in the wings for juicy, lucrative cases like this? Simply say the words, “Cher’s son” and dollar signs pop into their eyes.

I’m betting this worried and desperate mother went to a lawyer and poured out her worries about her son’s reckless lifestyle. She certainly must have mentioned that the trust fund her late ex-husband, Gregg Allman, left Elijah was being used to buy drugs, thus endangering her son’s life. (Allman died in 2017) In addition, Cher would have brought up Elijah pending divorce from his wife Marieangela King.  In court papers Cher’s legal team described King as “actively” keeping Elijah “from getting clean and sober or receiving mental health treatment that he desperately needs.”

After hearing of her circumstances, I’d bet the farm if I owned one that the lawyer convinced Cher that filing for conservatorship was the only way to go. This legal eagle might have given the singer/movie star the idea that the judge would appoint her as her son’s legal guardian, the person who will henceforth make all personal, medical and financial decisions for Elijah Blue Allman. What will most likely happen—and surely the attorney explained this—is that a stranger, a for-profit guardian will be named. Since Cher is now 77 years old and Elijah is 47 she was likely told that a younger professional guardian would be the prudent way to go.

But see, what I’m not sure Cher realizes is that after an outsider is named as the legal guardian for her son she will lose all control—and so will she. Once Elijah is named an “incapacitated ward of the court” Cher will have no say so over her son’s fate or future. The court will immediately confiscate whatever money, investments and property Elijah has and those possessions will immediately be transferred into the name of the court appointee. If he has a considerable amount of assets a separate conservator might be appointed as well.  Elijah’s passport, driver’s license, credit cards and check book will be seized. The guardian will tell him where he will live, who he can see, what doctors and friends he can visit. The conservator, if there is one, will pay all the bills and will have the final say if the ward wants to buy something. Elijah will no longer have the right to vote, freely travel, go walking or shopping on his own or decide which medications he will take. And it will be up to the guardian as to whether Elijah will be able to see his mother. Does Cher understand all this? If she complains later about the treatment her son is receiving, or challenges the guardian in any way, that appointee has the power to go back to the judge and ask to ban Cher from seeing Elijah—maybe permanently.  Overworked or uncaring judges usually approve their court appointee’s requests on the spot.

Understand that in the courts that hear these petitions for conservatorship or guardianship, a so-called “equity court,” due process is not guaranteed. There are no trials, hearings are held in strict secrecy under the convenient veil of protecting the ward’s medical information so family or other witnesses who want to challenge the petition are often unaware there is a legal proceeding underway. If Cher decides to speak to the media about a visitation ban, or anything else pertaining to her son’s conservatorship, she could face contempt of court charges, fines and even jail time as have so many others who tried to fight the system.

Cher doesn’t strike me as a shrinking violet. In fact, her son’s wife, Marieangela King, says Cher deliberately interrupted the young couple’s anniversary reconciliation in a New York hotel room last year. According to legal filings in divorce court King claims the Oscar/Grammy/Emmy winner hired four men to “kidnap” Elijah and take him away to an undisclosed location. Cher denied that in an interview with People and was quoted saying, “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.”

It sounds as though Elijah Blue Allman has gambled with his very life and something must be done to set him on a more productive path. But as I explain in my new book We’re Here to Help – When Guardianship Goes Wrong his mother may now be gambling with their future relationship.

  Again I ask: does Cher fully understand the ramifications of the path she’s chosen? Will she, ultimately, have to contend with some of the California conservatorship industry’s worst offenders? Who exactly is standing in the wings to be recommended as the appointed guardian and how many other high profile (read that financially profitable) cases have they been assigned to? I sure hope she does some investigation of her own to determine who exactly will be deciding everything about Elijah’s life going forward. In case after case I studied there were desperate family members who turned to the courts for help and, in the end, fell victim to a system that preyed upon rather than protected their loved one.

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