13 stars who are estranged from their folks

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Despite what Hallmark would have us believe, family relationships can be tough to navigate. In some cases, the only option may be to move forward without a person whose presence does more harm than good — even if that person is a parent or another close relative.

Join us as we look back at 13 stars who went no-contact with their parents, starting with this beloved actor…

Keanu Reeves' dad, Samuel Nowlin Reeves, left his family when the actor was 3, Keanu told The Guardian in 2008. After that, father and son had minimal contact until Keanu was 13, when Samuel split for good. Asked about navigating the loss of his dad at such a tender age, Keanu told the outlet, "I think it's definitely traumatizing. But it's hard to know how [it affected me] because I don't know what the other life would have been, you know what I mean?"

Asked if Samuel contacted him again, Keanu said, "Yeah, in the mid-'90s, but I didn't reach back out." The actor confirmed the mid-'90s contact came after Samuel's conviction for selling heroin, then said with a laugh that it wasn't because of the drugs that he opted not to reply when his father reached out. "I just didn't," he said.

Keep reading to see which other stars have been (or still are) estranged from members of their family…

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Kristin Cavallari is recently estranged from her father.

"I cut my dad out of my life about two years ago, which has honestly been the best thing I've ever done," the former "Laguna Beach" star revealed on a December 2023 episode of her "Let's Be Honest" podcast with guest Dr. Sherrie Campbell, a California-based therapist and psychologist.

"I actually didn't even realize that my dad was a narcissist until I was an adult," she explained, recalling that her father frequently made her believe she "wasn't good enough" as a child. "But then the flip side of that is, sometimes he would put me on this pedestal and talk me up. Now as an adult looking back, I'm like, 'Oh, it was when it benefitted you and made you look good.'"

After trying to manage the relationship for years, Kristin said she threw her hands up when he "crossed the line" with her three young children.

"I was like, 'You know what? I'm f****** done,'" she shared, without detailing the incident that made her walk away. "And he blamed me for it, like threw everything back in my face," she added. "You know, I can take the abuse. I have my whole life. It's like when you now start messing with my kids. I'm not doing it."

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Sometimes, what may seem like a permanent estrangement between family members turns out to be temporary, if long-lasting. For Adele, whose father left her family when she was a little girl, it took more than one try.

Speaking to Vogue in 2012, the Grammy winner recalled that she was "actually ready to start trying to have a relationship with" her dad, Mark Evans, but he went behind her back and spoke to British tabloids about her. "He's f****** blown it. He will never hear from me again," she said at the time. Over time, though, she changed her mind and went to see him before he died of cancer in 2021.

"I know he loved me, and we actually got our peace before he died," she told Vogue in a cover story the following year. "When he passed, I had this sort of physical reaction. That fear left my body."

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Goldie Hawn's famous daughter, Kate Hudson, has spent most of her life estranged from her biological dad, actor and musician Bill Hudson. Raised by her mom and Goldie's longtime partner, Kurt Russell, Kate has made peace with the situation, noting on more than one occasion that she hit the jackpot in the stepdad department.

"I think that estrangement is unfortunately quite common," the actress said in a sit-down with Willie Geist on "Today" in 2021. "I think it's important for people to talk about that. If they can't reconnect or if it's too challenging, that it's OK, right?"

The fact that her dad is out of the picture is "a 41-year-old issue," Kate said. "I have a great family. I have a beautiful mother. I have a stepfather who stepped in and played a huge, huge part in sharing what it is to have a dependable father figure in our life. But it doesn't take away from the fact that we didn't know our dad."

She added, "I kind of look at my dad and I'm like, 'You know, the love has never ever gone anywhere. It's always been there, no matter what those complications have been. And healing is … personal, and I think people sometimes just need to hear that they're not alone in that."

MORE: The biggest celebrity news story the year you were born

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According to Samuel L. Jackson, he's only met his father twice in person. He was grown and a father himself by the pair's second meeting, which took place when he was involved in a performance at a theater near his dad's mother's home. His father turned out to be there too.

"There was no way I thought of him as my father," the actor told The Telegraph in 2012. "We had a conversation and he said something like, 'You can't talk to me that way, I'm your father,' and I said, 'No, you're not — we're just two people talking.'"

Like Kate Hudson, Samuel said he was OK with his father's absence because someone else had taken on that role. In his case, it was his maternal grandfather. "It was fine," he told the outlet. "One of the things that disturbs people about me is that I don't have separation anxiety."

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"Home Alone," indeed. Child star-turned-indie rocker Macaulay Culkin stopped speaking to his dad, Kit Culkin, many years ago. (His younger brother, actor Kieran Culkin, is also still estranged from their father.)

For Mac, the rift was related to Kit's work as his son's manager, but as he'd later tell Marc Maron on a 2018 edition of his "WTF" podcast, the problems extended well beyond money matters. An actor himself, Kit was "jealous" of Mac's success, according to the younger Culkin. "He was a bad, abusive man," Macaulay said. After making multiple hit films, Macaulay told his parents that 1994's "Richie Rich" was his last. "I'm done, guys, hope you all made your money because there is no more coming from me," he said, according to Vanity Fair. It wasn't long before the barely teenaged star sued his parents in order to gain access to the estimated $17 million he'd already earned. "I learned how to read court papers at 14," Macaulay told New York magazine in 2006. He's said the trial was the last time they saw each other.

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Kieran Culkin's relationship with his dad wasn't as publicly dramatic as his famous brother's, but he's also described it as troubled and distant.

"He's not a good dude," Kieran said of Kit Culkin in a 2018 Vanity Fair interview. "But he wasn't really a big part of my life after the age of 15. Sometime in the '90s, he went away and disappeared for two, three weeks, and the babysitter remarked to my mom, 'You know what's funny is their father's been gone for three weeks, and not one of them has said, Hey, where's Dad?' Nobody cared, actually. My mom was the parent, so when he wasn't there it was nicer and better."

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In her memoir, on Instagram and in courtroom testimony, Britney Spears has repeatedly accused her father, Jamie Spears, of abuse and exploitation, especially during her controversial conservatorship. The pop star has also accused her mom, Lynne Spears, and sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, of being complicit in much of that abuse, but Britney and Lynne appeared to begin patching things up in 2023. The two even shared photos from Lynne's trip to see Britney in Los Angeles in December.

Jamie, who spent many years managing his daughter's finances, was reportedly still estranged from Britney as the year came to an end, despite serious health setbacks.

Jamie Lynn, meanwhile, has said her relationship with Britney is fine. "She's a good big sister, she is," the younger star claimed on "I'm a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here" in November 2023. "I love her. Me and her throw down. The world's seen that. I've learned to stop talking about it publicly, but you know what? Families fight. Listen, we just do it better than most."

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"Modern Family" actress Ariel Winter was 14 when she was placed in the emergency custody of her older sister, Shanelle Gray, amid allegations their mother, Chrisoula Workman, had abused Ariel physically and emotionally. The young star was legally emancipated three years later.

Addressing the custody battle over her guardianship in 2016, Ariel told talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, "It has been very sad for me. But at the same time, it's been much better for me emotionally and physically to be on my own and have a better, safer household and support system."

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In 2020, Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte revealed he hadn't spoken to his mother, Ileana Lochte, in "years," citing an exchange they had around the time he told her he was going to be a father. As he explained during an interview on "In Depth with Graham Bensinger," there was a shift in the family in the years that followed his parents' 2011 divorce.

"At one point, we were all against someone, and then later on in life, it changed," Ryan shared. "When it happened … we were all on my mom's side. But then later on in life, when I told her that she was going to be a grandma, and I'm having a kid, she said some very, very hurtful things that kind of ended our relationship, me and her."

Though he opted not to elaborate — "she just said some things to me and my wife," he told Graham — the athlete concluded that without an apology from Ileana, the relationship couldn't be salvaged. "I mean, I can get over it, but I just want an apology from her. And she said that she'll never apologize. She has nothing to say sorry for. And from there on, it's — I haven't spoken to her in years."

Ryan, who said he's on great terms with his dad, Steve Lochte, and his stepmother, added, "I don't care. I'm happy right now with my family. My job is to protect my family. And I will do anything, no matter what, to protect my family."

He and his wife, model Kayla Rae Reid, welcomed their third child in 2023.

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​​At 7, Brie Larson headed from Sacramento, California, to Los Angeles with her mom and sister for what she thought would be a three-week trip exploring casting calls for TV pilots. They moved into a small studio apartment, where it soon became clear other dynamics were involved. Ahead of her best actress Oscar win for 2015's "Room," Brie told Variety she remembered waking up to the sound of her mother crying.

"It wasn't until much later I realized, 'Gosh, we never went back to Sacramento. I never saw my dad.' Years later, I realized that right before we had left for what was supposed to be a three-week thing, my dad said he wanted a divorce," she explained.

Brie's relationship with her father, Sylvain Desaulniers, dissipated after that. "When legally I didn't have to have visitation with him anymore, I jumped on it. As a kid I tried to understand him and understand the situation. But he didn't do himself any favors. I don't think he ever really wanted to be a parent," she said.

Speaking to ELLE in 2016, Brie said she hadn't spoken to her father in more than a decade, though she admitted "he reaches out a lot." She also said she's not angry — after all, their tumultuous relationship helped inform performances like her Oscar-winning turn in "Room." "I don't have anger; I have gratitude," she clarified. "It took me a really long time to feel that. How could I continue to be fighting and pushing up against something that has only opened doors for me because I've united with it?"

Sylvain later denied those claims, telling DailyMail.com in 2016: "There's no accuracy to what's been written. It's inaccurate. It's my daughter, and I love her to death."

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In 1999, two years after "Boogie Nights" launched Heather Graham into a new echelon of stardom, she said it irked her publicist when she talked about her parents in interviews. She wasn't speaking to them at the time, she explained, and their estrangement was complicated.

"Um, because I don't speak to my parents now, people I think have a hard time understanding that, and it seems very ungrateful," she told The Guardian. "Unless you go into a long, long explanation, which I don't really want to go into, it's… Actually, it's not hard for some people to relate to, but it's a subject that people get very incensed about. I've met people before who I don't even know and they're like, 'You've got to talk to them, you must call them right now.' … And I've opened this up because I've talked about it, but it's, like, 'I don't want you to tell me what to do with my personal life, and it's kind of annoying.'"

In 2013, The Sun interviewed her dad, Jim Graham, who shrugged off reports he and his wife had been strict with Heather and blamed the current state of their relationship on one movie. "Up until 'Boogie Nights,' we were a close, happy family," he said of the film, a story about the adult film industry in the 1970s. "Then the movie came out and everything changed. It is safe to say that movie destroyed our relationship — that film is the anniversary of when Heather decided to take a break from us."

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After a long, rocky period between Mischa Barton and her mom, Nuala Quinn-Barton, the star of "The O.C." and her mother were able to put their differences aside. But not before they duked it out in court.

In 2015, Mischa sued her mother for allegedly fraudulent behavior during her tenure as the actress's talent manager. The suit claimed Nuala was a "greedy stage mother … who schemed to defraud her unsuspecting victim … for her own selfish benefit," according to ABC News. The following year, however, Mischa dropped the suit and by 2020, the two appeared to be on good terms.

"Words cannot easily express our relationship," Mischa wrote of her mom on Instagram in honor of Mother's Day that year. "This day I dedicate to this whip smart and tenacious woman. This industry isn't easy and mother/daughter relationships aren't easy!"