Cher has revealed why her marriage to late singer Gregg Allman only lasted nine days.
In her new memoir, Cher: Part One, the 78-year-old actor reflected on marrying Allman in 1975, days after learning she was pregnant with their child, Elijah Blue Allman.
“I didn’t know whether my relationship with Gregory would last or not. I was living each day as it came,” she wrote. “Then I found out I was pregnant, and we decided to get married.”
According to Cher, the nuptials were organized over a matter of days. She only had two of her friends come to the ceremony in Las Vegas, which was “over in a few minutes.” After that, she and Allman posed for a few photos and traveled back home.
“There was little about our wedding day that was romantic. There would be no honeymoon,” she said. Cher was the third wife of Allman, who died in 2017 at the age of 69 after complications with liver cancer.
The singer explained that the breaking point in their marriage came after she allegedly found a “plastic bag full of white powder” in Allman’s toiletry bag.
Although Cher then filed for divorce, Allman later checked into rehab where the pair attended therapy and he opened up about the “pressure to be Mr. Cher.”
They reconciled and went to Jamaica for their “belated honeymoon,” but Cher saw Allman drinking alcohol during the trip, which led to an argument and her early departure from the vacation.
After that, Cher discovered that Allman was addicted to heroin, so she gave him an ultimatum, and he went to rehab again before their baby arrived.
“I don’t remember what date I’d chosen exactly. It was something arbitrary,” she wrote. “I had had it with us repeating the same pattern again and again, and had told him over the phone, ‘I’m just so tired of doing this, Gregory. I’m so tired of going to rehab with you.’ He was quiet on the other end of the line. ‘But I keep going,’ he said softly.
She continued: “His answer stopped me in my tracks, because it was true. He kept going to rehab, kept trying to get clean, kept making an effort despite failing in the past. In that moment, instead of thinking of my own exhaustion, I empathized with him.”
In July 1976, Cher and Allman welcomed their first child, Elijah. This was Cher’s second child; she also shares a 55-year-old son, Chaz Bono, with her late ex and singing partner, Sonny Bono.
However, once the “I Got You Babe” singer brought Elijah home, there was an incident with Allman that made her realize her marriage was over.
“That point came soon after, when Gregory had a paranoid breakdown one night and insisted he saw men with guns in the backyard. ‘This is the last straw,’ I thought,” she claimed in the book. “Whatever he is now, it’s not safe for kids. It only happened once, but I couldn’t risk it.”
Cher and Allman then officially separated, before finalizing their divorce in 1979. Before that, she was married to Sonny Bono from 1964 to 1975.
