Cher, 77, has had a number of extremely high-profile romances. And while her current beau, Alexander ‘AE’ Edwards, 37, may be too young to qualify as a “father figure” to her 47-year-old son, other exes have done just that. Elijah Blue Allman, whose father was the late Greg Allman, (Cher’s second husband,) said in a newly resurfaced 2014 interview that Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer had been supportive. “I was lucky to have a lot of those men who were my mom’s boyfriends – from (Val) Kilmer to Tom Cruise,” he told Hugo Daniel at the time, per Daily Mail.
“I was lucky to have them in my life because my dad wasn’t around, so I really kind of looked to them,” he said. Elijah added that Cher’s other boyfriends Richie Sambora, Josh Donen, and Rob Camilletti were influential in his youth. “Richie and I would sit up all night playing guitar,” he said of the Bon Jovi guitarist. “He would play me some really pivotal things that shaped who I became as a musician.”
Elijah is reportedly currently in rehab for substance abuse issues. Elsewhere in the interview, he also claimed he’d had trouble connecting with his famous mom when he struggled with the effects of Lyme disease. “It was very hard for my mother to accept,” he reportedly said.
“I am sure it is very anxiety-causing and nerve-wracking when someone falls ill and could potentially not be around,” he continued. “But I would say however you have got to stay in the trench emotionally and be with that person through the whole step of that fight.” When questioned about whether Cher had not provided parental support during the health issues, he replied, “That’s not one of her strong suits.”
“We’ve had a dynamic like that going back a long time, so it would just figure that something like this would be the same way,” he explained. “However, that is not to say that she wasn’t supportive, which she was. But in that bitter cold of where you really don’t know if you are going to wake up and be alive tomorrow, you need extra from everybody. You need copious amounts. You absolutely need unconditional parental love in those dark hours.”