Family drama is nothing new to Hollywood, especially between parents and their kids. From ’90s tabloids to today’s social media posts, sometimes that drama becomes public information, and what most non-famous families would argue about on a group chat becomes a (sometimes years) long battle through the press.
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Here are 11 celeb kids who are (or were) estranged from their famous parents:
Content warning: This post mentions domestic abuse, child abuse, and drug use.
1.Vivian Wilson and Elon Musk: After Musk’s recent anti-trans comments about his transgender daughter, Vivian, on an X live stream with psychologist Jordan Peterson, Wilson decided to respond to her father’s hateful remarks during an interview with NBC News.
She told the outlet that her father “crossed a line” and his claims of being tricked into authorizing her gender-affirmative care were completely false. She said that after initial hesitation, the tech mogul had consented to her procedures
She continued, “I think he was under the assumption that I wasn’t going to say anything, and I would just let this go unchallenged. Which I’m not going to do because if you’re going to lie about me, like, blatantly to an audience of millions, I’m not just gonna let that slide.”
Wilson stated that when she was a child, Musk often berated her for being feminine. She said he would mention that she needed to appear more masculine and frequently complained about her high-pitched voice, “I was in fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didn’t know was actually just an advertisement for one of the cars — I don’t remember which one — and he was constantly yelling at me viciously because my voice was too high. It was cruel.”
Although Musk and Vivian’s mother, author Justine Musk, shared joint custody of their children, Wilson has claimed that Musk was not a present father and was rarely involved in her and her siblings’ upbringing, leaving them rather to be solely cared for by their mother and nannies.
Elon Musk has not directly responded to Vivian’s claims.
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2.Pax Jolie-Pitt and Brad Pitt: After Angelina Jolie’s allegations of abuse against ex-husband Brad Pitt surfaced in October of 2022, more light has been shed on the relationship between Pitt and his children. In particular, a post his son, Pax Jolie-Pitt, made on his private social media account for Father’s Day in 2020 highlighted their particularly troublesome family dynamics.
Then 16-year-old Pax stated, “Happy Father’s Day to this world-class a**hole!! You time and time again prove yourself to be a terrible and despicable person.
You have no consideration or empathy toward your four youngest children who tremble in fear when in your presence.
You have made the lives of those closest to me a constant hell. You may tell yourself and the world whatever you want, but the truth will come to light someday. So, Happy Father’s Day, you f**king awful human being!!!”
It can also be noted that many of Pitt’s children have dropped his last name from their surnames. Most notably, Shiloh Jolie petitioned the Los Angeles court for a name change on her eighteenth birthday in May of 2024.
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3.Angelina Jolie and Jon Voight: Speaking of Angelina Jolie’s family, the actress and her father have also had a tense relationship through the years.
Shortly after Jolie’s birth in 1975, Voight and Jolie’s mother, Marcheline Bertrand, separated after Voight had an affair. This left Bertrand to raise both Angelina and her brother James alone.
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In 2002, Voight publicly acknowledged his and Jolie’s estrangement during an interview with Access Hollywood in which he brought up that Jolie had “unspecified” mental health issues and pleaded with her fans and handlers to see that she received help.
He claimed he was “brokenhearted…because I’ve been trying to reach my daughter and get her help, and I have failed, and I’m sorry. Really, I haven’t come forward and addressed the serious mental problems she has spoken about so candidly to the press over the years, but I’ve tried behind the scenes in every way.”
At the time, he said he hadn’t yet met his grandson, Maddox, whom Jolie and ex-husband, Billy Bob Thornton, had recently adopted. “That is the greatest pain,” he said. “I’d love to help out with the baby.”
Voight then slammed Jolie and Thornton’s marriage, stating, “I never had the feeling that they were going to make it because of both of their serious problems, and they’ve both been very public about them, so I never really held out any hope.”
Jolie admitted in interviews that she was dealing with mental health issues but did not say that they were the cause of her rift with her father, nor did she confirm that Voight had reached out to help her.
Shortly after Voight’s inflammatory interview, Angelina legally changed her last name from Voight to her middle name, Jolie.
She also told the press, “I don’t want to make public the reasons for my bad relationship with my father. I will only say that, like every child, [brother] Jamie and I would have loved to have had a warm and loving relationship with our dad. After all these years, I have determined that it is not healthy for me to be around my father, especially now that I am responsible for my own child.”
In 2010, father and daughter reconciled, and Jolie stated that Voight had become a “valued grandpa” to her six children. However, it seems the duo’s relationship is once again on the rocks after Voight recently criticized Jolie’s views on the Israel-Hamas War.
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4.Jennifer Aniston and her mother, Nancy Dow: In 1999, Dow released a memoir, From Mother and Daughter to Friends, detailing her tense relationship with her daughter.
Jennifer Aniston wears a sleek long-sleeve dress with straight, loose hair
A woman with short hair leans on a chair, wearing a blazer over a collared shirt. Indoor setting with furniture in the background
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In 2004, five years after the book’s publication, Aniston revealed that she and her mother were still not speaking. “I never thought my mom would not know my husband,” Aniston said in an interview with Diane Sawyer, referencing then-husband, Brad Pitt.
While speaking about her film Dumplin’ in 2018, Aniston told The Sunday Telegraph, “She [Dow] was a model, and she was all about presentation and what she looked like and what I looked like. I did not come out the model child she’d hoped for, and it was something that really resonated with me: this little girl just wanting to be seen and wanting to be loved by a mom who was too occupied with things that didn’t quite matter.”
However, the mother and daughter reportedly reconciled in 2005, after Aniston’s divorce from Brad Pitt, and stayed on speaking terms until Dow passed away in 2016.
5.Adele and her father, Mark Evans: The “Hello” singer’s parents, Penny Adkins and Mark Evans, divorced when she was three years old. In interviews, Adele has reflected on how she often felt “let down” by her father as a child.
Speaking of their time together during her childhood, she said “I didn’t really have his attention, he’d say he would come and then he didn’t, and if he did come, we’d only go out for like half an hour and then he’d drop me home.”
The 36-year-old pop icon also revealed that she cut off contact with her father at the age of 12, stating, “I decided to stop seeing him when I was 12. I’d gone to Penarth [where Mark was from] to surprise him for Father’s Day and my nanna [told him to come] and he didn’t.”
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Adele claimed that the next time she saw her father was at her great-grandmother’s funeral, when she was 15 years old. She admitted, “He did apologize then but I was 15, I didn’t want to hear it then.”
The father and daughter didn’t have a complete falling out until 2011, when Evans gave an interview in which he claimed that Adele’s relationship troubles were caused by his failings as a father. He also alleged that Adele’s claims that she had cut off contact completely were untrue and designed to protect him from having to speak publicly about his alcoholism.
Adele unleashed her fury through the press in a 2012 interview with Glamour, stating, “It makes me angry! To come back after ten years and be like, ‘Maybe her problem with men comes down to me.’ It’s like, ‘F**k off! How dare you comment on my life?’ It makes my blood boil.
“There’s consequences other than just getting a bit of f**king money that lasts you half a year. It blows my mind. ‘I love her so much.’ Really? Why are you telling me that through a newspaper? If I ever see him I will spit in his face.”
In 2013, Evans was diagnosed with bowel cancer. He eventually succumbed to the disease in May 2021, but not before he and Adele reconciled.
In an October 2021 interview with Vogue, Adele admitted, “I know he loved me, and we actually got our peace before he died. When he passed, I had this sort of physical reaction. That fear left my body.”
She continued to talk about how her experience during her own divorce had helped her finally forgive her father for his shortcomings, stating, “One thing that definitely happened in my divorce was that it humanized my parents for me. Big time. I went to hell and back!”
“And in that, I found the peace to forgive him. He was ready to go, and he lasted a long time with it. So thank you.”
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6.Drew and Jaid Barrymore: Shortly after the success of Drew’s breakout role in 1982’s E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial, Jaid began taking her daughter, as young as 9 years old, to parties at the infamous Studio 54.
By age 13, the Never Been Kissed star had already developed both an alcohol and drug addiction. According to Drew, it was at this time her mother placed her in a psychiatric ward. In a 2021 interview on The Howard Stern Show, Drew claimed, “I was in a place for a year and a half called Van Nuys Psychiatric and you couldn’t mess around in there. If you did, you’d get thrown either in the padded room or get put in stretcher restraints and tied up.”
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In 2014, the Emmy-nominated talk show host told Marie Claire, “It’s the hardest subject in my life.” She continued, “I’ve never just been angry with her. I’ve always felt guilt and empathy and utter sensitivity. But we can’t really be in each other’s lives at this point.”
However, by 2021, it seemed the Barrymores had forgiven each other. As Drew told Howard Stern, “I feel goodness toward my mom. I feel empathy and understanding.”
7.Oliver and Bill Hudson: On Father’s Day 2015, Oliver Hudson posted a throwback picture of himself, his sister Kate Hudson, and their biological father, Bill, with the caption “Happy Abandonment Day!”
Oliver Hudson and Kate Hudson pose together, with Oliver in a casual shirt and jeans, and Kate in a long dress with floral patterns
Two men, Steve Bisley and John Jarratt, sit at a table, smiling at the camera. Steve wears a vest and shirt, and John wears a leather jacket
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While Kate wrote a tribute to their stepfather, Kurt Russell, on Instagram “Pa, just simply….. Thank you Happy Fathers Day I love you to the moon and back. #HappyFathersDay.”
Bill Hudson quickly fired back through an interview with The Daily Mail, stating, “I had five birth children but I now consider myself a father of three. I no longer recognize Oliver and Kate as my own. I would ask them to stop using the Hudson name…”
He continued, “They are no longer a part of my life. Oliver’s Instagram post was a malicious, vicious, premeditated attack. He is dead to me now. As is Kate. I am mourning their loss even though they are still walking this earth.”
Although Kate’s Instagram post was simply a tribute to Russell, with no jabs intended at their biological father, he maintained that her post “was an intimate shot and, as her father, I found it inappropriate and unsettling. I’ll leave it at that.”
At the time, Bill stated he didn’t want to see his eldest children “ever again.” But, in a recent appearance on CBS Sunday Morning, Kate revealed that her relationship with her father was “warming up.”
In a May 2024 issue of Us Weekly, Bill claimed, “Kate put it perfectly. We are warming up [and] letting things take their course. All families have rifts. It’s nice that our rift is healing.”
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8.Tatum and Ryan O’Neal: The O’Neals made headlines for co-starring in the 1973 film Paper Moon. At the 1974 Oscars, Tatum became the youngest person to ever win “Best Supporting Actress” for her role in the movie, and she shared in her 2004 autobiography, A Paper Life, that this was when her relationship with her father began to deteriorate.
She also wrote about her nomination: “You’d think an Oscar nomination would be an indelible moment, a victory to cherish and savor for a lifetime. But for me it must have been a trauma instead of a triumph.”
The Bad News Bears star described her father’s “deep resentment” over the acclaim she was receiving and claimed during awards season, his jealousy was “out of control.”
Courtesy Everett Collection
The pair were estranged for over two decades and only began to heal their relationship after the death of Ryan’s partner, Farrah Fawcett in 2009. Their reconciliation efforts were also documented in the reality series, Ryan and Tatum: The O’Neals.
When Ryan passed away in December of 2023, Tatum released a statement to People saying “He meant the world to me. I loved him very much and know he loved me too. I’ll miss him forever and I feel very lucky that we ended on such good terms.”
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9.Cher and Elijah Blue Allman: The relationship between the acclaimed pop icon and the son she shared with late rockstar Greg Allman has always been wrought with tension. In an interview from 2014, Elijah revealed that he didn’t believe his mother supported him during a near-fatal battle with Lyme disease, stating, “It was very hard for my mother to accept.”
Continuing, he stated, “I am sure it is very anxiety-causing and nerve-wracking when someone falls ill and could potentially not be around. 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.”
He claimed, “That’s [giving emotional support] 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.”
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The mother and son’s legal battles have also made the headlines after Allman’s wife, Marieangela King, claimed in court documents that in 2022, four men interrupted the couple in a New York hotel room while they were attempting to reconcile their marriage. The men removed Elijah from the hotel, and King alleged that one of the men told her that Cher had hired them.
In response to the abduction allegations, Cher told People in October of 2023 “that the rumor is not true” and declined to comment further. However, she did confirm that the family issues were related to her son’s addiction battles.
The “Believe” singer continued, “I’m not suffering from any problem that millions of people in the United States aren’t. I’m a mother. This is my job — one way or another, to try to help my children. You do anything for your children. Whenever you can help them, you just do it because that’s what being a mother is. But it’s joy, even with heartache — mostly, when you think of your children, you just smile and you love them, and you try to be there for them.”
In January of this year, Cher filed for sole conservatorship of her youngest son, claiming that he is “substantially unable to manage his financial resources.”
The filing also states “Elijah is entitled to regular distributions from the Trust, but given his ongoing mental health and substance abuse issues, [Cher] is concerned that any funds distributed to Elijah will be immediately spent on drugs, leaving Elijah with no assets to provide for himself and putting Elijah’s life at risk.”
It also describes his estranged wife as unfit to be his conservator because “their tumultuous relationship has been marked by a cycle of drug addiction and mental health crises.”
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In a statement to Page Six, King fired back, claiming that Cher has “historically excluded” her from making decisions regarding Allman’s care.
She stated, “I have always been a champion for the sober community and for Elijah’s sobriety…What I am not ok with are establishments that exclude me (his wife) from being part of Elijah’s treatment and hopeful recovery,”
The 37-year-old musician denied that she “enabled” her husband’s addiction and further maintained that she had never “suffered from any form of substance abuse, mental health or addiction issues.”
