30+ Celebrities Who Were Raised By A Single Dad
Parents have a significant impact on their children’s growth and development in all aspects of their upbringing. This is one reason why our parents play such a significant role in our lives. So although while it is the expectation that a child will have two loving parents, this is not always the case. It was these famous people’s single fathers that took responsibility for their upbringing and helped them grow up to become the famous people they are today. Let’s take a look at some famous people who were brought up by their fathers.
Hugh Jackman
Hugh’s parents, Christopher John Jackman and Grace McNeil, welcomed him into the world in 1968 in Sydney, Australia. He has been playing the part of Logan/Wolverine in the X-Men film series for an amazing 17 years, which is the primary reason for his widespread fame. In addition to that, he is well-known for his passion for the theater and musicals. His mother uprooted their entire family and moved to a new home in the United Kingdom when he was only eight years old. After the death of his wife, his father, a British accountant, was forced to balance his family and professional responsibilities while taking care of Hugh and his two brothers.
Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks is a well-known American actor and director whose career has spanned almost half a century in the cinema and television industries. Tom was raised by his father after his parents got a divorce when he was five years old. He was born in 1956 in Concord, California, and he was reared by his father.
Tom Hanks
His father, Amos Mefford Hanks, was a chef who owned restaurants and traveled over the country. After their parents divorced, Tom and two of his siblings moved in with their father, who went on to have multiple subsequent marriages while raising them.
Bono
Paul David Hewson, better known as Bono, was given birth in Dublin, Ireland, in the year 1960. He is the lead singer of the rock band U2. The mother of the Irish singer-songwriter went away as a result of a brain aneurysm while she was there at the funeral of her own father. At the time, Bono was only 14 years old, thus his father was responsible for raising both of them on his own.
Bono
The absence of his mother served as the impetus for a few of his songs. Brendan Robert Hewson, Bono’s father, was employed at the post office. Despite the fact that he was responsible for raising his son, Bono does not trust his father. Their relationship was tumultuous up to his father’s passing away in the year 2001.
Courtney Love
1964 was the birth of the multitalented singer who was born in the city of San Francisco, California. After Courtney’s mother married Frank Rodriguez, he became Courtney’s adoptive father. Courtney’s mother, an American singer, got a divorce from Courtney’s legally adopted dad when Courtney was 12 years old.
Courtney Love
After marrying her second husband, she eventually uprooted her family and moved to New Zealand. After being kicked out of school, Courtney was sent to live with her stepfather, and she remained with him until she turned 16 and was no longer required to do so by law.
Maya Rudolph
Maya is a well-known comedian and actress who was born in the year 1972 in the city of Gainesville, Florida. Maya Riperton was only seven years old when her mother, the singer Minnie Riperton, passed away from breast cancer. Maya is her daughter. Her work as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live brought her the most fame.
Maya Rudolph
Her father, music producer Richard Rudolph, was solely responsible for her upbringing after her mother passed away at a young age. He took on all of the responsibilities that come with being a parent.
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney’s mother passed away when he was just 14 years old due to an embolism that was brought on by a complication she experienced after breast cancer surgery. The passing of the singer-mother songwriter’s had a significant impact on his creative process. He was born in Liverpool, England, in 1942. Several of his songs had lyrics that paid homage to her.
Paul McCartney
With the death of Jim McCartney’s wife, he was responsible for the upbringing of Paul and his brother by himself. Paul’s songwriting was shaped by his exposure to the jazz pianist, who inspired him to start playing the piano and guitar when he was a teenager. It is obvious that Paul’s life would have taken a very different path if it weren’t for the fact that he had a father.
Pixie Geldof
She was born in Westminster, London, in the year 1990, and is an English model and singer. Her parents are the Irish singer Bob Geldof and the TV presenter Paula Yates. After a long battle with illegal substances, her mother passed away on the day that her daughter turned ten.
Pixie Geldof
Pixie and her three siblings were all raised by Bob Geldof. He was also responsible for the upbringing of Tiger Lily, Paula Hutchence and Michael Hutchence’s daughter. Michael was laid to rest in the year 1997, and after Paula passed away, he took Tiger in as a child so that the siblings could remain together.
Dylan McDermott
Mark Anthony McDermott, who is best known for his role in the legal drama series The Practice, was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1961 to his parents, Diane and Richard McDermott. He is best recognized for his role in the series. In 1967, an accident took the life of his mother, who had been raising him alone after the divorce of his parents.
Dylan McDermott
After that, Dylan spent his childhood with his maternal grandmother up until he was a teenager. After that, he proceeded to live and work in the pub that his father owned. His father was the proprietor of the West Fourth Street Bar, which was located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. He was employed there until his father’s third wife, Eve Ensler, inspired him to seek a career in acting. After that, he began his acting career.
Patricia Heaton
Patricia Heaton is an American actress and comedian who is best known for her roles in sitcoms. In the year 1958, she was welcomed into the world in Bay Village, Ohio, by her parents, Patricia and Chuck Heaton. Patricia was just 12 years old when her mother passed away from an aneurysm, and after that, her father was responsible for raising her in a devout manner.
Patricia Heaton
Chuck Heaton was a sportswriter for The Plain Dealer for the better part of half a century, during which time he covered practically every sport. Although though he opposed Patricia’s decision to pursue a profession in acting at first, he came around to accepting it in the end.
Apolo Ohno
Olympic speed skater Apolo Ohno was born in 1982 to Japanese parents, Yuki Ohno and Jerrie Lee, who are of American and European descent respectively. Apolo was reared in Seattle, Washington, in the United States by his father following the divorce of his parents when he was a young child.
Apolo Ohno
The man who would later become Apolo’s father was a hairstylist and salon owner who worked shifts of up to 12 hours at a time and did his best to raise his son while also pursuing his job. Because of his consistent encouragement, his kid began skating at an early age, and he is largely responsible for his involvement in the sport. He felt it was important for Apolo to be busy while he was gone from his family and home.
Madonna
In the year 1958, in the city of Bay City, Michigan, the “Queen of Pop” was brought into the world by her parents, Madonna Louise and Silvio Anthony Ciccone. She is currently active in the entertainment industry as a singer, actress, dancer, record producer, director, and author, and she has worked in virtually every facet of the entertainment business.
Madonna
The singer-songwriter was brought up by her father and the family’s housekeeper, whom her father married three years after his wife passed away from breast cancer when Madonna was five years old. Madonna’s mother passed away from the disease when she was five years old. This second marriage infuriated Madonna, and she developed a resentful attitude toward her father as a result. Her father was an engineer and designer for General Motors and Chrysler, where he worked for many years.
Jane Fonda
Jane Seymour Fonda is an American actress and model who was born and raised in the United States. 1937 is the year that Jane was born. Henry Fonda, a well-known actor, and Frances Ford Seymour, a well-known socialite, were her parents. In 1950, shortly after Henry had requested a divorce so that he might marry another woman, Jane’s mother took her own life.
Jane Fonda
Jane was only 12 years old when her mother passed away. At the time, her mother was a patient at a hospital or clinic in New York City. Soon after, in the same year, Henry wed Susan Blanchard, but the couple got a divorce after only six years of marriage.
Rosie O’Donnell
She was born in Commack, Long Island, in 1962, to parents named Roseann Teresa and Edward Joseph O’Donnell. The American comedian spent her childhood years living there. Rosie’s mother lost her battle with breast cancer just a few days before Rosie turned 11 years old, and she was laid to rest shortly after. The aftermath of this terrible occurrence had a profound impact on the remainder of her life.
Rosie O’Donnell
Her father worked in the defense business as an electrical engineer in addition to his other responsibilities. He did his best to bring up Rosie and her four siblings, despite the fact that their parents had a difficult relationship with each other.
Robert Redford
Born in Santa Monica, California, in 1939, Robert is a well-known American actor, producer, and director who has since retired. Charles Robert Redford and Martha Woodruff Redford were his parents. Unfortunately, Martha Redford Redford lost tragically from a hemorrhage while her son was a teenager.
Robert Redford
Robert attributed his accomplishments to his mother’s unwavering support and her uncanny ability to see the bright side of every situation. Robert, who by all accounts was a misbehaving adolescent, was raised by his father, who had been a milkman before becoming an accountant.
Mariska Hargitay
Mariska was born in Santa Monica, California, in 1964. Her parents were actors Mickey Hargitay (a bodybuilder actor) and Jayne Mansfield (an actress). In the television show Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, she rose to prominence as an actress. A terrible event claimed the life of her mother in 1967. Mariska and both of her brothers managed to get away with only minor wounds.
Mariska Hargitay
After arriving to the United States in 1955, Hungarian-born Mickey Hargitay began his career in the entertainment industry and was crowned Mr. Universe the same year. At the time that they were married, he had roles in a few films alongside Mariska’s mother. He was a natural athlete from a young age and continued to compete in a wide variety of sports as he got older.
Mike Tyson
Mike Tyson, who hails from the United States and was formerly a professional boxer, competed in the sport for a total of twenty years. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1966, Tyson made his professional boxing debut in 1985. He is widely regarded as one of the best heavyweight boxers in the history of the sport. Cus D’Amato served as Tyson’s legal guardian and primary caregiver throughout the challenging years of his youth. Throughout this time, he guided Tyson’s development as a boxer and raised him through his teenage years.
Mike Tyson
As a child, Tyson was a defiant and mischievous one who frequently got into trouble. Cus D’Amato, an Italian-American boxing manager and trainer, managed the entirety of Mike Tyson’s career while also serving as a mentor to other managers. It was he who came up with the well-known peek-a-boo boxing strategy that Mike Tyson utilized to win his fights. Tyson was the one who applied it.
Ian McKellen
An English actor with a remarkable career that has spanned seven decades, Sir Ian Murray McKellen is regarded as a cultural icon in his own country of the United Kingdom. After his mother passed away from breast cancer when he was 12 years old, he was reared by his father, Denis Murray McKellen, in Burnley, Lancashire, where he was born in 1939. His parents were Margery Lois and Denis Murray McKellen.
Ian McKellen
The man who raised Ian was of Irish and Scottish ancestry and worked as a civil engineer and preacher. He was Ian’s guardian up until the time of his death, which occurred when Ian was 25 years old.
Peaches Geldof
Peaches was a well-known television personality, columnist, and model in the English language. Her birth and upbringing took place in London in 1989, and her father, singer Bob Geldof, was the primary caregiver for her after the passing of her mother, TV host Paula Yates. She got her start in the industry when she was quite young and continued working up until the year 2014, when she passed away.
Peaches Geldof
Her father, the Irish singer-songwriter Bob Geldof, works in the family business. He is well-known for his activism, and he has performed concerts to raise money for a number of different organizations. He brought up Peaches and her three brothers and sisters on his own.
Eddie Izzard
Eddie Izzard is a stand-up comedian, actor, and campaigner from the United Kingdom. In 1962, she was born in Aden, which was then a part of the Aden Colony, to English parents named Dorothy Ella and Harold Izzard. She was given the male gender at birth, but she now considers herself to be gender fluid, and the pronouns she and she are used to refer to her.
Eddie Izzard
Eddie was only six years old when her mother passed away following a protracted fight with cancer. Eddie’s career was impacted as a result of her passing; she often claims that everything she does is for the sole purpose of reuniting her with her mother. Around the time of Eddie’s birth, her father was an accountant for British Petroleum, where he had worked for many years.
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. She was commonly known as the “Queen of Soul” due to her influential musical career. She had a career that spanned more than sixty years’ worth of time. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1942 to pastor Clarence LaVaughn Franklin and gospel singer Barbara Franklin. Her mother was a gospel singer. Aretha’s mother passed away from a heart attack shortly before the occasion of her daughter’s tenth birthday. Aretha’s parents had a rocky marriage and later divorced.
Aretha Franklin
Her mother’s tragic death inspired her to pursue a career in singing, and her father began managing her shortly afterward. Aretha was raised by her father, who also encouraged her musical career. Aretha’s father was a minister who traveled much to give sermons. He gained recognition and prominence as a result of the acclaim that was given to him for his passionately delivered sermons.
Benicio Del Toro
Benicio is a Puerto Rican actor and producer who was born in San Germán, Puerto Rico, in 1967. He is most known for his appearances in the films Traffic, The Usual Suspects, and 21 Grams, which earned him widespread critical acclaim. When Benicio was nine years old, his mother lost her battle with illness and passed away.
Benicio Del Toro
Gustavo Adolfo Del Toro Bermudez, the man’s father, was a prominent attorney. Benicio should get an education in business, according to the father. On the other hand, the actor only attended one theatre lesson before withdrawing from college. He went on to explain that, in contrast to the economics he was studying at the time, acting was something that came easily to him.
Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley is a film director, political activist, and a former actress from the country of Canada. She was born in Toronto, Canada, to the actor Michael Polley and the actress Diane Elizabeth Polley. Her mother is also an actress. It was later discovered that her real father is Harry Gulkin, the film producer with whom her mother had a secret relationship. Her mother had a relationship with Harry Gulkin before she had her daughter.
Sarah Polley
Before Sarah turned 11, her mother lost her battle with cancer and passed away. Michael, Sarah’s father, was an actor in his younger days, and he raised Sarah and her siblings when she was growing up. Soon after he established a family, he went on to pursue a career in the insurance industry. Michael served as Sarah’s guardian and traveled to set locations with her. In addition to that, he is the parent of actor Mark Polley.
James Ellroy
James Ellroy is a famous American crime writer who was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1948. He is renowned for his singular approach to writing sentences. When he was 10 years old, his mother was murdered by an individual who has never been identified.
James Ellroy
James claims that she had a nasty temper since she was an addict who used drugs. His father was a business manager and accountant, and Rita Hayworth was one of his former clients. Once James’s mother passed away, it was James’s father who was tasked with the job of rearing James.
Michelle Phillips
Michelle Phillips is an American singer, songwriter, actor, and model who first came to public attention as a vocalist in the band The Mamas and the Papas. Phillips is most known for her work with that band. Holly Michelle Gilliam was brought into the world in 1944 in the city of Long Beach, California, by her parents, Joyce Leone and Gardner Burnett Gilliam.
Michelle Phillips
During Michelle’s childhood, her mother suffered from rheumatic fever, which ultimately led to heart difficulties for Michelle. In the end, these problems led to a cerebral bleed that ultimately resulted in her passing. While raising his children, Michelle’s father was a merchant mariner, thus the family often relocated from place to place and he worked a variety of odd jobs.
Bob Geldof
Bob Geldof is an Irish singer-songwriter and political activist who first came to popularity in the late 1970s as the lead vocalist of the Irish rock band Boomtown Rats. Geldof is most known for his work with the Band Aid charity. His parents, Robert and Evelyn Geldof, brought him up in Dun Laoghaire, which is located in Ireland. When he was six years old, tragically, his mother passed away from a cerebral hemorrhage.
Bob Geldof
Robert Geldof managed the dining establishments in a number of hotels in London and Ireland during the course of his career. Soon after relocating back to Ireland, he established a business and began working as a manufacturer’s agent. He never wavered in his support for his son’s endeavors during his entire career.
Chaney Kley Minnis
American actor Chaney Kley was perhaps most recognized for his recurrent part as Officer Asher in the television drama The Shield. Manassas, Virginia is the location where he was born in 1972. Chaney was raised by his father after the untimely death of his mother, Linda Joan Minis, while Chaney was young.
Chaney Kley Minnis
Because his father avoided the media, very little information is available about his life. But, after Linda had left, he was the one who was responsible for the children. Tragically, Chaney passed away in 2007 due to complications arising from his use of illegal narcotics.
James Garner
James Scott Bumgarner was conceived in the year 1928 by his parents, Weldon Warren Bumgarner and Mildred Scott, and was born in Denver, Oklahoma. James and his brothers were moved to live with various relatives when their mother passed away five years after James’s birth. This was the catalyst for their relocation. Their father accepted responsibility for them once he remarried and the couple had more children.
James Garner
James struggled through a turbulent upbringing. His father was successful in business. He remarried multiple times, and one of his later wives mistreated James, which resulted in several fights between the two of them. One of his subsequent spouses mistreated James.
Prince Harry
Prince Harry is the youngest son of King Charles III, the current monarch of the United Kingdom, and the late Princess Diana of Wales. His father is King Charles III, and his mother is the late Princess Diana of Wales. Under the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, he entered the world in the London neighborhood of Paddington. Soon after Harry’s parents divorced in 1996, his mother was killed in the fatal car crash the following year, when Harry was only 12 years old.
Prince Harry
His father was the monarch with the oldest age at the time of his accession to the throne of the United Kingdom in 2022 and the longest-serving heir apparent before he took the throne. Before the Queen’s death, he was actively involved in serving the monarchy and carrying out official tasks and engagements on her behalf. He often attended royal events.
Molly Shannon
Molly Shannon is a well-known comedienne and actress in the United States. She spent a total of six years working on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live as a cast member. Cleveland, Ohio, was the location of her birth in 1964, and an Irish-American Catholic family raised her there. When her mother, sister, and cousin were killed in an accident that was caused by her father being misled into thinking he could handle driving under the influence, her father was persuaded into believing he could handle driving under the influence.
Molly Shannon
James Shannon, a sales manager, has spent his entire life battling challenges related to substance abuse. He waged a lifetime war against both his own identity and the object of his love attraction; in reality, he was gay. In spite of the overwhelming sorrow he felt regarding the unfortunate event, he did his best to bring up Molly and her sister.
Jenna Jameson
Jenna Marie Massoli is a well-known name in the United States of America in the fields of modeling, adult film acting, and television hosting. Her parents, Laurence Henry Massoli and Judith Brooke Hunt, gave her the name Jenna Jameson when she was born in 1974 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her professional name is Jenna Jameson. Jenna was only two years old when her mother, who had been a showgirl in Las Vegas, went away due to an illness.
Jenna Jameson
Her father held a variety of jobs in the Las Vegas area, including that of police officer and program director for an NBC affiliate station. Because of the costs associated with his wife’s cancer treatment, Laurence was forced to put in longer hours at the office in order to make ends meet. He managed to accomplish this despite the fact that he was also Jenna and her brother’s primary caregiver.
Bimbo Ademoye
This stunning actress hails from Nigeria and was born in the city of Lagos in the year 1991. Throughout the course of her eight-year acting career, Bimbo has earned a great deal of recognition and acclaim for her performances. When Bimbo was still a young child, her mother left the household and never returned.
Bimbo Ademoye
As a direct consequence of this, her father took care of her and supported her decision to pursue a certain line of work. Even to the point of driving her to her very first audition, he has been nothing but her most ardent supporter ever since.
Cary Grant
Archibald Alec Leach, better known as Cary Grant, was born in Bristol, England, in 1904 to parents Elias James Leach and Elsie Maria Kingdon. His professional name was Cary Grant. The English-American actor has a prosperous career spanning four decades of his life. His father had troubles around the consumption of alcoholic beverages. His mother suffered from persistent depression, which made it difficult for her to provide for him. When Cary was nine years old, his mother was admitted to a psychiatric facility for treatment of mental illness. Cary was under the impression that she had passed away.
Cary Grant
They didn’t find each other again until several years later, but when they did, they were both happy to make up lost time. His grandfather was employed in the garment industry as a presser of suits. Once she suffered a mental collapse as a result of the death of a child, he had little choice but to check his wife into a mental institution and have her treated there. Because of this, he was responsible for raising his one and only child.
Prince William
St. Mary’s Hospital in London was the location of the prince’s birth in 1982. His parents, who were at the time Prince Charles III and Princess Diana of Wales, gave birth to him. After William’s mother passed away in a sad accident in Paris, France, his father brought him up. Her dying occurred a little over a year after the couple had finalized their divorce after a difficult marriage.
Prince William
The current monarch of the United Kingdom is King Charles III, who has reigned since 2002. With the passing of his first wife, he brought up William with the assistance of their nanny, Olga Powell, as well as the rest of the royal family. Charles just tied the knot with Camilla Parker-Bowles, who now holds the position of Queen Consort.