Cher's Kids: Get to Know Chaz Bono and Elijah Blue Allman

Cher is a proud mother of two kids. However, her relationships with both of her children have been complicated.

The legendary entertainer became a first-time mom at the age of 22 when she and her first husband, Sonny Bono, welcomed Chaz in March 1969. Chaz made frequent appearances at the end of the couple’s variety show, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, which began airing in 1971. The little one was carried out by his parents to say goodnight to viewers at the end of every episode, charming so many fans.

After initial fame on his parents’ TV show, Chaz lived a relatively private life until his early adult years when he came out in 1995. He took a position with GLAAD and worked with the Human Rights Campaign on LGBTQ+ issues at the time.

In 2009, Chaz announced he was transitioning. He documented his transition in the film Becoming Chaz, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Later that year, Chaz competed on Dancing With the Stars. He lost a whopping 50 pounds from his frame in 2013, and has pursued a career in acting, appearing on shows such as American Horror Story, Curb Your Enthusiasm and he portrayed a reverend in a 2016 plot line on the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.

“She’s been really encouraging and a great, sympathetic ear,” he previously told Closer Weekly of Cher supporting his acting career.

Cher welcomed her second child on July 10, 1976, barely a year into her doomed marriage to Southern rock god Gregg Allman. The couple named their son Elijah Blue, and he grew up to become a musician like his dad. The singer/guitarist recorded several albums in the late 90s and early aughts with the industrial metal band Deadsy, and Elijah even toured with his mom as a backup guitarist.

Unfortunately, he also had drug battles like his famous father, who died of liver cancer in 2017. Elijah and Cher have had a complicated relationship over the years, with periods of being close as well as long stretches of estrangement.

In February 2022, a source close to Cher told Closer exclusively that her relationship with her children had gotten better in recent years. “She wasn’t always present, but I’d say age has softened her,” they shared. “She tries to bring her kids closer by organizing dinner and Zoom calls.”

The insider went on to add that Cher and Chaz “still bicker,” but “they have always been like that.” As for Elijah, he has also mended fences with his mother, who told him “she’s only a phone call away if he needs advice.”

After meeting at Paris Fashion Week in September 2022, Cher went public with her relationship with Alexander “AE” Edwards in November 2022. The “Dark Lady” singer sparked engagement speculation in December 2022 after posting a photo of a diamond ring gifted to her by her beau. In a candid tweet, she marveled that she wanted to “run to” her late mother, Georgia Holt, and “show her” the ring because she loved diamonds. Georgia died earlier that month at age 96 after dealing with health issues for quite some time.

Scroll down for more on Cher’s kids Chaz and Elijah Blue

Cher and Chaz Bono

The entertainment icon revealed that she had issues when he came out in 1995. “It was very unlike me to, in the beginning, have a problem with Chaz being gay, and it disappeared like that. Then we talked about [if Chaz was] transgender for many years. And [he] would say, ‘No, I don’t want to [go through transition]. And then he went and said, ‘OK, I want to do this.’ But it wasn’t easy. I remember calling, and the old [voicemail] message … was on the phone, and that was very difficult. But you don’t really lose them. They just are in a different shape,” she told CNN in December 2020 of Chaz’s transition.

Cher added that her first-born was “so unbelievably happy” with the person he had become.

“When I was really little, it was very clear to me that I felt like a boy,” Chaz said in a 2011 interview about how he never felt comfortable in the body he was born with. He said it was “horrifying” when he experienced changes in his body, saying, “You have this image of yourself and all of a sudden your body does the exact opposite of what you feel.”

Chaz said that it caused conflicts with his mom growing up, who had dreams for her daughter when Chaz was just trying to be himself. He revealed during the interview that Cher had finally become comfortable calling him by his name.

Since his transition, Chaz has carved out a successful acting career and became the first transgender contestant to compete on Dancing With the Stars.

Cher and Elijah Blue Allman

Despite their seven-year age difference, half-siblings Elijah and Chaz initially grew up together. “We were close. I think what happened was Chaz went off to a performing arts school back east and I went off back east as well, later to prep school, and so from there, we kind of took different paths. But for a minute growing up, we were kind of close, yeah … we kind of grew apart when we started going to different schools and just not being geographically around each other,” Elijah told Entertainment Tonight in 2014.

Being sent away from home at such a young age affected Elijah deeply. “When you go to boarding school at 7 years old, it’s kind of hard to feel like you’re not being shunned,” he told the outlet, adding, But I’m at an age where I’m making peace with it because you just have to. But I still … it doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s still wrong to do that.”

Elijah would come home on weekends to visit his parents in New York, but it led to drug abuse. “So I would come home on the weekend and me and my friends would go up to Harlem and get into all kinds of trouble. It’s actually shocking to think about myself at like 11 years old buying drugs in Harlem. It’s pretty crazy. It seemed normal at the time,” he told ET.

“I started with drugs around the same time that we all did, around 11. I mean it’s just what you did, it’s just what everybody did.” Elijah explained that he started using marijuana and ecstasy, then graduated to hard drugs, including heroin.

“I (was) just looking to escape all the things in my past and, that’s when you turn to those kind of drugs, you know heroin and opiates … (Heroin) kind of saved me … If I didn’t have that at that point, I don’t know what I would have done … You may jump off a bridge. If you can only just go through that time period and live through it and then get help,” he revealed. Elijah has been sober since 2008.

Elijah appeared as a guitarist in his mom’s iconic “If I Could Turn Back Time” music video, and performed as a backup guitarist on tour. He married British singer Marieangela King, in December 2013. Cher didn’t attend their Beverly Hills wedding, as Elijah didn’t invite her.

Cher and Elijah were estranged for some time, as he explained in 2014, “You know, man, we have our issues. We’ve worked through a lot of them. We’ve got some more to go, but when you’re an adult, you take on a different sort of tone than when you’re an adolescent, and I’m not going to sit in an adolescent’s kind of a mind frame, because that will affect me negatively in my own life when I start my own family. So, you don’t have any choice if you want to be a balanced person, but to ultimately heal. But there’s unresolved stuff, for sure,” he told ET.

But in the end, Elijah still admires his famous mom, adding, “You know, she’s really talented. She’s gorgeous — I mean, she’s Cher. What’s not to love?”