Cher's son Elijah Blue reveals rift with famous mother after he eloped to marry girl and his recovery from heroin addiction in explosive new interview



Cher has so far not congratulated them on their engagement or marriage

The singer did not invite them to the family Christmas



He nearly died after contracting Lyme disease but his mother questioned whether it was ‘imaginary’

Cher ‘haunted’ by Elijah’s troubled childhood and it’s a ‘real regret’ for her

He’s a recovering heroin addict and has been to rehab ‘several times’



Cher's son Elijah Blue Allman has eloped with his fiancée after his megastar mother shunned their engagement.



The renegade offspring of the Turn Back Time singer and rocker Gregg Allman married Marieangela ‘Angie’ King on December 1 by the fireplace at their new Beverly Hills home.



A source close to the couple informed MailOnline about the elopement, and the 37-year-old has now decided it was time to lift the lid on his troubled relationship with his mother for the first time.

Pictured: Cher and Greg Allman's son Elijah Blue and new wife Marieangela ‘Angie’ King tied the knot on December 1 Elijah lists his current hobbies as chopping firewood with an axe in his backyard and relaxing at home watching Real Housewives of Beverly Hills with his new wife Angie.



Going for gold: The couple show off their matching ornate wedding rings



They might seem simple pleasures for the rock and roll offspring of two of America’s biggest musical legends – but they provide him with some light relief after a tumultuous decade in which he’s battled a heroin addiction, watched his sister Chastity become his brother Chaz, almost died after contracting Lyme disease and bounced back by meeting his soul mate after his ‘darkest hour’.



When Cher didn’t acknowledge or congratulate her son on their engagement, typically rebellious Elijah suggested they elope.



Explaining he and Angie's reasons for not inviting Cher, Elijah said: ‘I wasn’t going to wait for anyone’s approval and congratulations just like I’ve never waited for any of that my whole life. The way I eloped with my wife is the same way I’ve done everything I’ve ever done. I don’t know any other way and we knew it was the right time.



‘I’ve always been the black sheep of my family. The reason being we just have different value systems and we just have a different mentality and that clashes a lot. We have lots of ups and downs and right now isn’t the best time.

‘Had we been getting on a little bit better along maybe it would have been different.’



Elijah describes as Cher’s reaction as ‘crickets,' - in other words silence.

No approval: Cher didn’t acknowledge or congratulate her son on their engagement to Angie, according to Elijah



He said: ‘She knows that I’m married, my entire family knows I’m married. Some have congratulated me, some haven’t. My father’s side of the family is very happy for us and is very excited.’



But Angie, 26, added Elijah’s grandmother - Cher’s mother Georgia Holt - has congratulated them, saying: ‘She’s a darling.’



Recounting their romantic wedding, Elijah said: ‘We eloped in a real Romeo and Juliet fashion in early December. We got married in front of the fireplace in our new house, we kind of christened it. Just a few friends came, one of them was my good friend, the rapper Mickey Avalon.

‘We wanted something that was sacred and private. This was something that was for me and my girl.’

He hasn’t spoken to his mother since he left. He said: ‘It’s like a Mexican stand off but we have a history (of not talking). When I first started my band we went a long time, maybe a couple of years.’



Light at the end of the tunnel: Elijah has now found happiness after stints in rehab for drug addiction and a severe bout of Lyme disease

Healthy hobbies: Elijah enjoys chopping wood in his backyard and watching The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills



Things have got so bad Elijah and Angie were not even invited to the family Christmas celebration at Cher’s house.



On Christmas Eve, Elijah tweeted: ‘Me and my fiancée we're not invited to the Malibu house for Christmas. #smileonebighappyfami-lie.’



Asked if he was hurt, he said: ‘For sure, I’m a real big Christmas guy. It was just kind of unspoken you know, nothing was formal. We knew [we weren’t welcome].

Elijah and Angie – who is in a German pop band and signed to Elijah’s own record label Trankilo – had been living temporarily with Cher, 67, in her Malibu compound but moved out at the end of October after things got ugly.

‘When you get married and you find the love of your life you do kind of want to be around your family more at those sort of times of the year.’

Son of a star: The offspring of Cher and Gregg Allman has few good words to say about life in Hollywood



Diplomatically, he added: ‘I mean it was probably a better Christmas for all them with us not being there because the emotions are kind of little high right now. And we also had a great time just spending it with each other.’



Angie felt was saddened by the behaviour of her mother-in-law though, saying: ‘I was very hurt. Christmas is supposed to be about family, we’d just got married. Christmas is about being together with family and friends.’



One explanation for the rift is Elijah’s disdain for what he sees as the superficiality and narcissism of Hollywood life.



He said: ‘Superstars are a difficult and unique breed. You have to be superficial to be a mega celebrity, you have to be… but who you are behind closed doors is really up you, there’s no cameras there.

‘Usually when there’s fame, there’s also brand of some sort, there’s also revenue. So whatever needs to be done to serve the generating of that revenue takes priority. I think that’s too big for anyone (famous) to escape.’



Optimistic thoughts: Elijah and Angie are hoping Cher will attend their forthcoming wedding celebrations



Tweeting: Elijah has not been shy about his feelings on his mother Cher, posting this message about his lack of Christmas invite



Elijah thinks it’s difficult for people like his mother to be down to earth when people are scared to say no to her.



He said: ‘They can look up at the sky and say it’s red and ten other people will jump in line and say it’s red, I’m not one of those people. So when I see that kind of s*** going on… I speak up about it. I don’t think it’s really the best quality of life for someone when they are just enabled to the nth degree, I think history has shown that.’



Asked how Cher and Angie get on, Elijah said: ‘You’ve got two strong women, two big bulls in the pen. I think there’s a respect and I think they butt heads a little bit.

‘My girl is not docile, she’s not well behaved, she has an intimidating presence. I think it’s good for my mom to have a really strong and confident woman like my wife around.’

Angie told how she and Cher would work out together to Cher's workout DVDs but admits they ‘clashed a few times’.



Famous parents: Cher, with Elijah and her former husband Greg Allman



Elijah thinks his mother might be finding it difficult to give up her son to another woman.



He said: ‘Those feelings come up for any mother that their son’s being lost to another woman, no matter who that woman is.



‘It’s a shame because you’re hoping at the end it’s all going to come together.’



Cher and Elijah’s difficult relationship appears to stem from them not having been close as he grew up.



He was sent to boarding school aged seven and attended several different establishments over a ten year period. Cher once ‘punished’ him for misbehaving at school by sending him to a military school for a year – although he says he actually enjoyed it.

In fact, he thinks being sent to schools on the east coast ‘saved him’ and made him more aware of how fake people can be in Hollywood. However he doesn't hold a grudge against his peers who have found more success than him.



Moving on: Elijah looked in sombre mood as he posed for photographs outside his home



Among his circle of friends growing up were the Kardashian sisters. He recalled: ‘They were always really close with everyone I knew. I would see Khloe the most because that’s the one I was most friendly with and Kourtney as she’s closer to my age. They’re all great girls, they’ve done great for themselves it’s amazing what they’ve done.’



Short lived marriage: Cher and Gregg Allman, pictured in 1977, were married for just four years



Elijah has previously been romantically linked with Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and Heather Graham.



Commenting on his famous exes - he once famously claimed he scrubbed his private parts with household bathroom cleaner Tilex after having sex with Hilton - he laughed: ’I have nothing bad to say about any of those women. Anything bad to say I’ve said it.’

After finishing school, Elijah formed the rock band Deadsy with school friends. They made three albums and toured with heavy metal acts Limp Bizkit, Korn and Deftones.



Among his other high profile friends are actor Jared Leto and musician Fred Durst who he met via his life as a rock star.



However, during that period Elijah got hooked on smoking heroin and taking painkillers.

He has been in and out of rehab ‘several times’ and says he last used heroin back in autumn 2008.



‘My drug addiction was pretty much about an eight year thing of really heavy using. I was taking lots of drugs on the road. I was smoking dope (heroin), taking a lot of pills, any pain killer we could get and drinking,’ he said.

However it wasn’t the drugs and hard partying that nearly killed him but the tick-borne illness Lyme disease, which he thinks he contracted after swimming in the Ganges river in India in 2005.



Lyme disease can go for years undiagnosed, but in 2007 when he first started feeling rough, doctors in LA were baffled by his condition and couldn’t diagnose what was wrong.



He said: ‘They did every kind of test, they even did the Lyme test. After that, I kind of gave up that Allopathic western medicine route and went natural.’



Me and my baby: Loved up Elijah has been posting plenty of photographs of he and Angie via his Twitter

However, that didn't go much better and when one ‘body cleanse’ went wrong he ended up in an intensive care unit for two weeks.



He said: ‘I felt probably the closest to death I’ve ever been. It’s like my life force was just being drained out of the bottom of my feet.’



In 2010, Elijah re-launched himself as an artist with an exhibition in Malibu, which Cher and Chaz both attended, but said he felt ‘horrendous’ throughout.



Soon after, he decided to leave America for an alternative medicine retreat in the Black Forest in southern Germany.



He had in fact tried the clinic, run by Dr Ursula Jacob, once in 2008 for a two-week stint and it hadn’t worked. That time he attended with dying actress Farrah Fawcett.



Explaining, he said: ‘I had gone with Farrah right before she passed away, when she went there in 2008. They didn’t do s*** for me. So I was kind of stupid to go back thinking they could do anything.’



Happier times: Elijah and his mother Cher at the 1998 Academy Awards

But the clinic is a celebrity favourite and Dr Jacob was a family friend so he returned in autumn 2010.



He said: ‘A lot of people in Hollywood know it (Dr Jacob’s clinic) and have been going to for a variety of reasons, youthful tonics, some for cancer treatments or whatever. It is very expensive… it can beup to $15-20 grand a week.’



Controversy: Cher, pictured last year, has an up and down relationship with her son

Describing the treatments he endured, he said: ‘I did stuff like artificial fevers where they put you in a tube for five hours and give you like a really dangerously high fever. I did that like 15 times in the Black Forest.

‘I had two 15,000 Euro stem cell shots to the stomach. It wasn’t pretty. I spent a solitary, introspective, uncomfortable winter there.



‘My nervous system was so tweaked that I was just kind of immobile and my veins were gone with the amount of infusions they were giving me every day. I was the longest person to ever stay at that clinic.’



Other alternative treatments Elijah tried elsewhere included a ‘blood supply clean out’ and even snake poison.

While there, Elijah found Cher somewhat unsupportive of his plight.



He said: ‘It was very hard for my mother to accept my illness. The going notion for a lot of years was that it was imaginary because that’s just easier.



‘That’s not to say she wasn’t supportive because she was, but in that bitter cold when you really don’t know if you’re going to wake up and be alive tomorrow you need extra from everybody. You absolutely need unconditional parental love in those dark hours, that was lacking from that direction.’

After leaving the clinic feeling no better, Elijah moved into an apartment in Cologne and finally started to make a recovery under another alternative doctor who practised ‘energetic medicine’.



He also met Angie on a blind date and fell in love. The love-struck pair travelled Europe together – enjoying a private tour of the Louvre museum in Paris - before finally moving back to Los Angeles.

The happy pair are now planning two more wedding celebrations this year – one in May in Germany and another at their LA home later in the summer.



Elijah is hoping Cher changes her tune and attends at least one of them. ‘I’ll be very shocked if she doesn’t come’, he said. Angie is hoping Cher will attend both celebrations.



Back in the day: Cher, pictured with children Elijan (left) and Chastity (now Chaz) Bono (right) back in 1982

They also have a reality television show in the works in which they plan to give their home a medieval-style makeover.



Elijah said: ‘I want to create the first old-world style homestead right here in Beverly Hills. Everything from old building techniques, natural building techniques, re-doing the house with all old German and British styles of plastering.



'Using organic materials for insulation. We are going to do a natural swimming pool, a little fairytale thatched cottage guest house and we’re building a chicken coop. I’m also going to fill the house with various artisans from all over the world to do the work and do a lot myself.



‘It’s the reality show documenting our project and also our life out in Los Angeles. The contrast of our public and private life.’



He said the show is currently in development with a ‘large production company’. Cher i s apparently enthusiastic about it and he is optimistic that they can mend their rift.



Asked simply if he thinks Cher has been a good mother, he thoughtfully summed up his view of their relationship.



‘She’s had her moments and I know she’s tried, I think it’s a very complex situation that historically has never made for a good parent (fame). I don’t think it’s anything she doesn’t know or hasn’t acknowledged. I know it’s a real regret, a real thing that for sure haunts her. I definitely know that the intent has been genuine. It’ll be mended because it has to be, it will just take time.



‘We’ve never really dealt with our things from the past, but hopefully we will.’



Elijah, who sat down for an interview with Entertainment Tonight on Tuesday, also revealed he and Angie are planning to start a family soon and that is something he knows his mother will approve of. He said: ‘My mom has always said she’s super excited about that, she loves kids.’



One other bit of good news for Elijah is he is finally mending his relationship with his rocker dad who was almost totally absent from his childhood.



He said: ‘It’s not that it’s been bad (their relationship) just been very absentee. I’ve forgiven him for that. I’ve seen my dad a lot more in the last year then I have in a long time.

