20 Celebrities Who Do Not Get Along With Their Families
“A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it,” best-selling author Mary Karr once wrote. Naturally, nobody is exempt from family disputes—not even those who put on their best smiles to grace the red carpet.
For actors and singers, being connected to their emotions is essential in their profession. This allows them to turn these unfortunate personal stories into art, whether by drawing inspiration for a song or delivering a powerful performance for a challenging movie role.
Many celebrities have spoken openly about the problematic relationships they had with one or both of their parents, sometimes leading to legal battles. While some have found a path to forgiveness as they grew older, others were left with valuable lessons on how not to treat their own children.
Below, Bored Panda invites you to explore 20 stories of celebrities who have or had a tumultuous relationship with their parents.
#1
Macaulay Culkin
The Home Alone actor’s father, Kit Culkin, was controlling and had him on an incredibly demanding working schedule, neglecting his desires to play and make friends with his peers.
According to Macaulay, his violent dad was “jealous” of him because “everything he tried to do in his life, [he] excelled at before [he] was 10 years old.”
At just 15 years old, the Richie Rich star took his parents to court to ensure they didn’t control his $17 million fortune. Since then, he and his father have been estranged. The 43-year-old reportedly still speaks with his mother, Patricia Brentrup.
“I knew from a very early age that I better take notes on him. Notes on how not to be, notes on how I don’t want to be when I grow up,” he said of his father in 2006.
Jennifer Aniston
The talented actress had a close bond with her father, John Aniston. However, the relationship with her mom, Nancy Dow, was far more complex.
“She was from this world of, ‘Honey, take better care of yourself,’ or ‘Honey, put your face on,’ or all of those odd sound bites that I can remember from my childhood,” Jennifer revealed, speaking with Elle Magazine about her mother’s obsession with looks.
“She did it because that was what she grew up with. ‘You want to be happy. It’s hard for big girls.’ She was missing what was [actually] important.”
“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,” the Friends star said after her mother’s passing.
Kelly Clarkson
Kelly’s father, Stephen Clarkson, left her when she was 6 years old to move from Fort Worth, Texas, to California. The pain of being abandoned by her dad inspired the lyrics of her 2004 song Because of You.
The two-time Grammy winner revealed that she made an effort to repair the strained relationship with Stephen “a few times” before he passed away in 2018, but he “kept hurting” her.
“You keep trying, and you think, ‘You know what, I shouldn’t have to work this hard for someone to love [me]. That’s a little ridiculous,’” she said on Skavlan in 2017.
Angelina Jolie
Angelina has a distant relationship with her father, Jon Voight, who separated from his wife when the actress was a year old.
“I had an affair and there was a divorce. There was a lot of hurt and anger,” Jon admitted.
In 2001, after Tomb Raider was released, Angelina’s father publicly blamed his divorce for provoking his daughter’s “serious mental problems,” claiming the actress “was never normal.”
Angelina responded by saying that it wasn’t “healthy” for her to be around her father. When she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her charitable work, she thanked her late mother in her acceptance speech and ignored her father, who was in the audience.
Eminem
The rapper has had a problematic relationship with her mother, Debbie Nelson, throughout his career. The lowest point came when he released Cleaning Out My Closet in 2002, which led Debbie to file a $11 million defamation lawsuit against her son, as per People Magazine.
More than ten years later, in 2013, Eminem put out Headlights, in which he raps, “And I’m mad I didn’t get the chance to thank you for being my mom and my dad/So Mom, please accept this as a tribute I wrote on this jet.”
Now, Debbie celebrates her son’s achievements “from afar,” congratulating him on social media on the success of his projects.
Ariel Winter
The Modern Family star emancipated from her mother, Chrisoula Workman, in May 2015 due to allegations that she was emotionally and physically abused.
“Nobody controls you anymore,” Ariel said of being emancipated during an interview on The Ellen show. “You handle your own business affairs, your own living arrangements, your own money. Everything is sort of in your own hands.”
Between the ages of 14 and 17, the actress was under the custody of her older sister, Shanelle Gray, whom she described as her “best friend” and “the most important thing” to her.
Drew Barrymore
“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,” Drew told Marie Claire about the “complicated” relationship with her mother and manager, Jaid Barrymore.
The actress’ adolescence was marked by substance abuse, and Jaid placed her in rehab when she was 12 years old. “My mom locked me up in an institution,” the Never Been Kissed star told The Guardian.
“But it did give an amazing discipline. It was like serious recruitment training and boot camp, and it was horrible and dark and very long-lived, a year and a half, but I needed it. My life was not normal.”
When asked whether she was exploited by her parents, Drew responded, “I think with my mother it was definitely too out there. But my dad, no, he was just unavailable.”
Adele
Adele’s father, Mark Evans, left her and her mother when she was only 3 years old. Following the split, Mark’s drinking problem worsened, and he became estranged from his daughter.
The singer recontacted him after learning he was losing his battle with cancer.
“I don’t think I understood the true deepness of how I felt about my dad until we spoke,” she told Rolling Stone Magazine in 2021, revealing that she was eventually able to forgive her father.
Their final conversation “set little [her] free” from feelings of abandonment and fears of being unloved by those she trusted the most.
Rihanna
In 2019, Rihanna sued her father, Ronald Fenty, for using their last name for his talent development agency, Fenty Entertainment. The Love on the Brain singer had trademarked the name before launching her makeup line, Fenty Beauty, two years prior.
According to The Blast, Ronald wanted to profit from his daughter’s name by listing a fake 15-date Latin American tour announcement, which was estimated to have pulled in around US$15 million if legitimate.
Despite their rocky relationship, Rihanna’s father said she “checked in” on him “every day” when he thought he was “going to die” after he experienced severe coronavirus symptoms. She also shipped a ventilator to the isolation center in Barbados where he was staying.
Matthew Mcconaughey
Matthew felt betrayed when his mother, Kay, began leaking private conversations to the media when he had his big break in show business in the mid-1990s.
“I was trying to find my own balance with fame and stuff. And I would share things with her … some of those things I would share might show up in the six o’clock news three days later,” the Dallas Buyers Club star recalled on the Red table Talk podcast.
The Oscar winner later learned that Kay had invited the tabloid news program Hard Copy for a tour of his childhood home.
“I call her up and, of course, she’s watching it too, so she picks up the phone, and I hear the same damn show in the background!” he said. “I was not able to talk to her as my mom for about eight years.”
Key admitted that she was “enjoying his fame more than he was.”
Christina Aguilera
Christina was verbally and physically abused by her father, Fausto Aguilera. After her parents divorced, the songstress moved with her mother and her younger sister, Rachel, to their grandmother’s home in a suburb in Pittsburgh.
“Growing up in an unstable environment and whatnot, music was my only real escape,” the hitmaker told The Guardian in 2008.
Though she got in touch with her father briefly in 2000, the two are no longer in contact. “I think if he might have been different, it would have been a different situation. But I think you reap what you sow,” she added.
Courtney Love
Courtney was intermittently placed in foster care in 1979 until she won legal emancipation from her parents at 15 years old. After being legally freed from parental control, the actress and singer became estranged from her mother, writer Linda Carroll.
She also has a rocky relationship with her own daughter, Frances Bean, who she had with Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. Following Courney’s drug-related arrest in 2003, Frances’ grandmother was appointed her guardian until Courtney regained custody almost two years later following a stint in rehab.
The mother and daughter are reportedly working on rebuilding their relationship. “When my mom is on a right and healthy path, she is one of the most fulfilling, beautiful, intelligent and kind people I ever met,” Frances said in 2019.
