Celebrities are not immune to experiencing complicated family dynamics.
Ireland Baldwin recently spoke out about cutting toxic members of her family out of her life, and actress Kate Hudson has always been vocal about her complicated relationship with her biological father.
Some stars separated themselves from their parents early in life, while others were estranged for some time before finding a way to reconcile.
Here are more celebrities who are – or were – estranged from their parents.
BEN STILLER REFLECTS ON THE ‘DARK UNDERSIDE’ OF HOLLYWOOD FAME
In a now deleted post on X, Richard Dreyfuss’ son, Ben, shared he and his two siblings are no longer in contact with their father.
“Everyone assumes my siblings and I are wealthy from our dad and we’re all a bit too uncomfortable to make it clear, but we have no money from my dad,” Ben began, according to USA Today. “My dad has no money. If he did, we wouldn’t get it since we’ve been estranged ever since some complicated family drama to do with MeToo.”
Ben explained that the tension in their family began when he shared a social media post in support of his brother Harry, on his dad’s then-Twitter account, after Harry came forward with allegations that actor Kevin Spacey had groped him. He said, “That tweet prompted someone to MeToo my dad,” and that “he blames us for that.”
After deleting the post, Ben shared why he decided to take it down in a Substack post, and also shared that he last communicated with his dad in an email exchange two years ago, adding, “I’ve sent plenty since, but he hasn’t replied.”
Ireland Baldwin has always had a complicated relationship with her father, famous actor, Alec Baldwin. He famously left her a disparaging voicemail that leaked publicly when she was 11, revealing tensions in their relationship.
More recently, Ireland posted a blog on Substack, in which she detailed her “lonely childhood,” adding she “grew up without two parents in my home and no siblings to turn to.”
In the emotional blog post, she shared how she managed to distance herself from “narcissistic” family members.
“I had a lonely childhood at times, which is why I grew up feeling like I needed to win over certain people in my own family,” she added. “For whatever reason, their validation and praise was meaningful to me. Nothing was more freeing than finally realizing how poisonous these people are. So, I inch into my thirties with an understanding that this is how you break these cycles. My daughter doesn’t have to know these people, and I can protect her from them. I can do my very best to construct my own idea of a family, piece by piece. And show how a real family treats one another.”
Actress Heather Graham has been vocal about how her desire to pursue a career in Hollywood caused a rift in her relationship with her parents.
When speaking with The Wall Street Journal in August 2024, her father “regularly told me that the entertainment industry was evil” and admitted that when her first movie, “License to Drive” was released in 1988 when she was 18 years old, “living at home became more difficult” and she realized that in order to be successful she had to move out.
She then moved to West Hollywood with a friend from high school who was working as a model, saying “living with her was freeing.” She later dropped out of college and found greater success as an actress, which caused her to re-think her relationship with her parents.
“I stopped talking to my parents when I was 25, and I’m estranged from them now,” Graham admitted. “My friends are proud of me, and I’m proud of myself. I have really good friends.”
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Macaulay Culkin was one of the most sought-after child stars in the 1990s, but behind the scenes, he was in the middle of a custody battle between his father, Kit Culkin and his mom, Patricia Brentrup.
During an appearance on the “Today Show” in April 2025, the “Home Alone” star said that at the time “I wanted nothing to do with my f—ing father,” calling him “the worst.”
“I haven’t spoken to him in, what would it be, about 30-something years?” he said. “He deserves it, too. He’s a man who — he had seven kids, and now he has four grandkids, and none of them want anything to do with him.”
The “My Girl” star added that most people would feel as if they messed up when their entire family cuts ties with them, but that he has “more than an inkling that” his father doesn’t feel that way. In his opinion, his father probably feels “Like we’re wrong and he’s right. He’s one of those narcissistic, crazy people.”
Jennifer Aniston has spoken out a few times about her complicated relationship with her mom, who she says “was very critical” of her.
“She was critical. She was very critical of me. Because she was a model, she was gorgeous, stunning. I wasn’t. I never was,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in January 2015. “I honestly still don’t think of myself in that sort of light, which is fine. She was also very unforgiving. She would hold grudges that I just found so petty.”
The two were estranged for many years, with the estrangement reportedly starting in the late 1990s after her mother, Nancy Dow published her memoir, “From Mother and Daughter to Friends: A Memoir.” The two first reconnected in 2005 following Aniston’s divorce from actor Brad Pitt, and reconciled again in 2016, shortly before Dow’s death.
“It’s important,” she told Allure in December 2022 about forgiving her mom. “It’s toxic to have that resentment, that anger. I learned that by watching my mom never let go of it. I remember saying, ‘Thank you for showing me what never to be.’ So that’s what I mean about taking the darker things that happen in our lives, the not-so-happy moments, and trying to find places to honor them because of what they have given to us.”
Brooke Hogan revealed in an Instagram post in March that she cut contact with both of her parents for different reasons. In a separate social media post, her mother, Linda Hogan, said she hadn’t seen her daughter in seven years.
“I have been EXTREMELY verbally and mentally abused since childhood,” Brooke wrote on Instagram. “Sadly, it would frequently turn physical. And sometimes it’s not by the person you would assume, abuse comes in all shapes and sizes. This vicious pattern has robbed me of any sense of self-esteem or confidence I’ve been trained to pretend to have.”
She concluded her lengthy statement by saying she loves both of her parents and has empathy for them and their struggles, adding, “My heart hurts every day, and not a day passes it does not affect me.”
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When her father, Hulk Hogan, died in July, Brooke wrote a lengthy tribute on Instagram saying they “had a connection deeper than words, one that spanned lifetimes,” and that she felt lucky that she “knew the real version of him. Not just the one the world viewed through a carefully curated lens.”
In September, Brooke responded to having been left out of her father’s will, telling TMZ, “It’s what I asked for, I stand by it with no regrets.”
Christina Ricci shared details about her dark childhood while appearing on the documentary “Child Star.”
“My father was a failed cult leader, and so he had all that same sort of, like, really crazy narcissism that goes along with someone wanting to run a cult,” she said. “He was very physically violent. There was never any peace in my house.”
As a child star, she considered going to set to work as a place of “refuge” and “emotional safety.”
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Her parents divorced when she was 13, and she hasn’t spoken to her father since she was a teenager.
Kate Hudson and her brother, Oliver Hudson, have had an estranged relationship with their biological father for a majority of their lives.
The two have been open in the past about their lack of a relationship with their biological father, musician Bill Hudson, with Kate explaining in April 2024 that things were “warming up” between her and Bill, but that she had “no expectation of that with my father.”
After her mom, Goldie Hawn, and Bill divorced, her mom began a relationship with actor Kurt Russell, who Kate and Oliver look to as their father figure.
“But I also love that we also talk about how sometimes, you know, estrangement is real, the family complexity is real and it’s okay if you create your own family, that blood doesn’t always have to be thicker than water, but if you could make the blood connect, then that’s a great thing but it doesn’t have to be everything,” Kate said on the “Today Show” in 2021.
