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Family relationships aren’t always easy. That can be especially true when fame and fortune are involved. Just ask these celebrities. Whether it’s due to conflicts over politics, fallout from childhood trauma, or other unresolved issues, these celeb parents have strained relationship with their kids. 

Jon Voight and Angelina Jolie

Actor and humanitarian has long had a strained relationship with her famous father, Oscar winner Jon Voight. The distance dates back to her childhood, when Jolie was primarily raised by her mother, actor Marcheline Bertrand, after her parents’ split. Since then, she and Voight gone through periods of ups and downs. Some of their issues stem from being on different sides of the political spectrum. In a 2024 interview with Variety, he sharply criticized her stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. 

“She has been exposed to propaganda,” he said. “She’s been influenced by antisemitic people. Angie has a connection to the U.N., and she’s enjoyed speaking out for refugees. But these people are not refugees.”

Jolie, for her part, has chosen not to share details about her relationship with her dad. 

“Angelina wishes him well but does not speak about him publicly,” a source told the publication. 

Brad Pitt and his kids with Angelina Jolie

Jolie’s own six children reportedly have a complicated relationship with their dad, Brad Pitt. Her ex-husband is estranged from his four adult kids: Maddox, Pax, Zahara, and Shiloh, and see the two younger children, Vivienne and Knox, “periodically,” a source told Us Weekly earlier this year.

“The rest of the relationships are strained. It’s caused him a lot of heartbreak,” the insider shares. 

The tension stems from an infamous altercation between Jolie and Pitt on a private plane in 2016 and their subsequent bitter divorce.   

​​Kelsey Grammer and Greer Grammer

Frasier star Kelsey Grammer, 70, has eight kids with four women, including a new baby with his wife Kayte Walsh, 46, who was born in October 2025. But his relationship with his older children has been difficult. He had no contact with his daughter Greer Grammer, 33, from the time she was four until she was 16, she recently said on her Pretty Basic podcast. It wasn’t until a chance meeting at a Christmas tree lot that they began to develop a relationship. 

The Cheers alum has admitted he did not step up as a father to his older kids.  

“I have neglected a couple of the kids in my life, especially the first two,” he told People. “I’m trying to make up for a little of it now. I’m still their dad, so you can always have [a] chance to show up.”

Richard Dreyfuss and Ben Dreyfuss

Jaws star Richard Dreyfuss has reportedly not spoken to his children since 2024. The actor’s son Ben Dreyfuss, 39, recently opened up about the family tension in a series of social media posts (via People).  

“My dad has no money,” Ben, a journalist who has written for Mother Jones, wrote in a since-deleted post on X on Nov. 13. “If he did, we wouldn’t get it since we’ve been estranged ever since some complicated family drama to do with MeToo.”

The estrangement apparently dates back to 2017, but an incident at a family dinner in 2022 led to a more permanent breach. 

Anthony Hopkins and his daughter Abigail

Acclaimed actor Anthony Hopkins has been candid about his virtually non-existent relationship with his daughter Abigail Hopkins, 57, whom he shares with ex Petronella Barker. Barker and Hopkins split up with their daughter was a baby. 

“It is true that I have spoken about her in the press coldly, saying in one regrettable interview that after 20 years of not hearing from her, I no longer knew where she was or if she’d ever married or had children, and that at that point I did not care,” the Oscar winner wrote in his 2025 memoir, We Did OK, Kid. 

Despite his harsh words in the past, Hopkins said he regret not being in contact with Abigail, writing that his “door is always open” and that he hoped she was “well and happy.”

 “I will always be sorry for hurting her when I left the family, even as I believe to this day that I had no choice,” he said. 

Woody Allen and Ronan and Dylan Farrow

Director Woody Allen shared two children, Ronan (his biological son) and Dylan Farrow (who was adopted), with his former partner Mia Farrow. Ronan and Dylan have had a contentious relationship with their father for years stemming from Dylan’s allegations that Allen sexually abused her has a child. Allen has denied those accusations. Ronan has also spoken critically about his father’s controversial marriage to Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn. 

“He’s my father married to my sister. That makes me his son and his brother-in-law. That is such a moral transgression,” the journalist has said in the past (via ABC News). 

Mia Farrow and Soon-Yi Previn

While two of Mia Farrow’s children are estranged from their father, the Rosemary’s Baby actor has been estranged from her daughter Soon-Yi since the early 1990s. That’s when Farrow discovered her adopted daughter, then in her early 20s, was in a sexual relationship with Allen, then 56. (Soon-Yi and Allen have since married.) 

For her part, Soon-Yi has said that Farrow was an abusive mother and defended her relationship with Allen, whom she says she never saw as a father figure growing up. Her brother, Moses Farrow, has backed up her claims and criticized his mother’s parenting, saying she favored her biological children.  

“Putting it all together, I recognised that it’s important to provide yourself with a sense of safety, and sometimes that means maintaining distance,” he said in a 2020 interview with The Guardian.  

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