Can you imagine meeting the love of your life and realizing that the two of you can’t be together?
Meeting what you would call your ‘soulmate’ is something only a lucky few ever experience. When you know you have something special it can be very hard to let it go. Yet, sometimes our personal circumstances make it impossible to continue the relationship, which is why sometimes we have to let them go, for the wellbeing of the other person. This is what happened to the iconic pop singer Cher and her second husband, the Southern rock legend Gregg Allman.
In the summer of 1975, just a few days after Cher’s divorce from producer and singer Sonny Bono —with whom she sang duets and co-hosted a variety show—, she met Gregg Allman and married him right away in Las Vegas. However, Allman was struggling with heroin addiction so she decided to file for divorce just 9 days of marriage. According to Cher, the leader of The Allman Brothers happened to be so high at the moment she called him that he couldn’t even tell her what was going on.
Shortly after their first divorce, Cher found out she was pregnant with Allman’s child, and knowing that he had cleaned up, they rekindled their love and remarried. After the birth of their son, who they named Elijah, the couple managed to stay together for a little while. Their love for each other led them to recording an album together in 1977, Two The Hard Way under the name “Allman and Woman.” Sadly, this product of love didn’t do well on the charts nor with their audience, so it didn’t get noteworthy commercial distribution.
Three years after their son’s birth, the couple got stuck in a rut once again, this time forever. In 1979, the couple got divorced for a second time. Gregg Allman said he couldn’t get Cher to trust his drinking of alcohol; however, it seems that both parties had trust issues.
The pop singer frowned upon Allman’s relationship with substances, while he in turn was jealous of the fact that Cher maintained a professional relationship with Sonny. Despite the love both had for each other, they had to set each other free because they couldn’t trust each other enough.
Shortly after their divorce, Cher released the song where she told the story of her relationship with Allman: “My Song” (1979). In it, she pours her heart out, expressing how even though “loving was intense, [their] problems were immense.” In the song’s chorus, she cried out that he was “too far gone” and that he would “never get know his son,” a rather lamenting tone when talking about her ex-husband.
During the divorce proceedings, Cher stated in an interview for People magazine that nobody made her feel as happy as Greg Allman did, and he was the “kindest, most gentle, loving husband, and father. But then he forgets and everything goes to sh*t.”
In his personal memoir, My Cross to Bear, Allman described Cher in a dreamlike, passionate way: “She smelled like I would imagine a mermaid would smell.”
On May 27, 2017, Greg Allman passed away after a long-illness, surrounded by his family and friends. Cher’s response to the event was passionate and loving; she said words were not enough to show the world the way he marked her and how she would never forget him. Her gesture proves that, even though they couldn’t be together, they truly were soulmates.
