Cher: Grieving Diva Faces Killer Virus Crisis

Gregg Allman’s death has plunged Cher into energy-sapping grief, leaving alarmed pals terrified her “stressed out” condition will reignite the life-threatening Epstein-Barr virus that nearly killed her!

“There is nothing more stressful than the death of a loved one,” says a source. “And Cher has been overcome with grief. She is shattered!” Following his liver cancer death at age 69 on May 27, the crushed "Turn Back Time" singer immediately tweeted a message using the pair’s nicknames for each other: “I’VE TRIED … WORDS ARE IMPOSSIBLE GUI GUI FOREVER, CHOOCH.”

Now friends fear Gregg’s death could wreck Cher’s immune system and plunge her into a relapse of Epstein-Barr, which can drain energy and attack the liver, and once left her bedridden for months. Medical studies say high stress levels can spark a return of the devastating disease, which now lies dormant.

As The National ENQUIRER reported, Cher was alarmed after learning Gregg, who underwent a lifesaving liver transplant in 2010, had canceled recent tour dates to seek emergency treatment by Mayo Clinic doctors. The frail songbird reached out to make peace with her ex, who had once made her life a living hell!

“She decided to take the high road because she knew Gregg was terminally ill, and she wanted to be sure she is there for him before he passes,” author Ian Halperin told The ENQUIRER. Chronically ill Cher forgave Gregg for all the heartache and pain he’d caused her, sources say. Cher wed Gregg in Las Vegas in 1975, but the rocker’s drug and booze battles turned her dreams of happiness into a nightmare.

Heartbroken by his hard partying, she filed to dissolve the marriage nine days later! But she returned “to him only so they could have a kid,” their son Elijah Blue Allman (left), now 40, says the writer. They divorced in 1978, but she continued to love Gregg, who married three more times. Now sources believe his death could foreshadow her own. “Cher was heartsick over the news of Gregg’s death,” says the source. “This is the kind of thing that could just push her over the edge!”