15 Famous Dads You Didn't Know Had Secret Kids
Mia Horton Quick Links
The world of the rich and famous is an interesting one. It's become commonplace to hear that "this" celebrity had "this" affair and "this" celebrity has "this" many kids with different partners. By now, nothing is a shock. What's become uncommon is that many of these famous "Baby Daddies" thought they had an opportunity to keep the news under wraps. In a day and age where social media can share information faster than we can blink, hiding something like a secret child is next to impossible.
If you're famous and you have a secret kid, the only real chance of keeping that news private is if you have or had a partner who didn't want the world to know either. This can happen, but with the money that can come from spilling the beans, keeping a celebrity's secret is rare. One Tweet can make someone an awful lot of money and will tell the world without much effort that you're the father until you prove otherwise.
Who are some of the most famous male celebrities that we didn't know have already become fathers? Despite how hard it can be to keep a secret, the list is perhaps longer than you think and the backgrounds are varied. From musicians to movie stars, celebrities seem to be having kids everywhere! Some are finding out right away and trying to hide or deny it. Others embrace their kids but didn't know about them until well after their births had taken place. See how many of these famous dads surprise you.
Bow Wow
Rapper Bow Wow tried to keep his daughter from his fans until July of 2011, denying reports that he'd slept with model Joie Chavis or that doing so led to him being the father of a little girl named Shai Moss. Bow Wow was a child star and his concern was how he'd be publicly perceived if it was learned he wasn't a kid anymore.
As a rapper trying to gain respect in the rap community, the idea of a 24-year-old Bow Wow changing diapers didn't exactly scream "thug" but Shad Gregory Moss (Bow Wow's real name) wised up and realized that he should be proud to be a father. After he revealed the truth, he spent a lot of time sharing his feelings about being so far away from his daughter and he's fully embraced being a dad.
Flo Rida
TMZ has reported that Flo Rida has a baby boy from a woman named Alexis Adams who has filed court docs, complete with a positive paternity test, proving that Flo Rida is the dad. Adams' claims that her son Zohar Paxton has been ignored by Flo Rida and that to make matters worse, the child suffers from hydrocephalus. This is a condition in which fluid accumulates in the brain, typically among young children, enlarging the head and sometimes causing brain damage.
As of April 2017, Flo Rida hadn't acknowledged the paternity test but it seems pretty clear he won't be able to keep this one under wraps much longer. He needs to do the right thing, and at the very least, reach out and help cover medical expenses for his son.
Jude Law
Jude Law has a lot of kids. He has a lot of kids with different women. One of his kids is a daughter named Sophia Law, who Jude doesn't see very often. Now almost 8 years old, the two want to get to know each other a little better.
Law's former 2008 fling, Samantha Burke, lives in Florida with her daughter, Sophia. He met Burke while he was filming his first Sherlock Holmes movie and at the time, Samantha was a Hooters waitress living in New Jersey. They had a fun weekend that Samantha knew wasn't really going to go anywhere. But if you think of it, it kind of did.
A paternity test was taken and the baby was proven to be Jude’s. Jude now pays $6,000 a month in child support as well as schooling and medical fees until Sophia turns 18. While he could be more involved in her life, he is doing the right thing here by supporting his daughter and trying to get to know her a little better. But to have so many kids has got to start getting expensive.
Dwayne Wade
Professional NBA baller, Dwyane Wade, was engaged to his long-time girlfriend, Gabrielle Union, when he found out that he had a baby with Aja Metoyer, who he'd apparently hooked up with while he and Union were on a break. It was December of 2013, before a Miami Heat game, when Wade took the opportunity to man up after he'd initially denied the reports. Metoyer claims the two had gotten together while Union was still in the picture but it hardly matters since Union stayed with Wade after the news.
Wade admitted that his son, who is now about 4 years old, may have caused some pain or tension in the past. But at the end of the day, he’s grateful for another healthy addition to his family. It's nice to see that these two were able to work things out. That doesn't always happen.
Chuck Norris
How many Chuck Norris jokes do you know? I can probably rattle off at least 10 off the top of my head. What's not a joke is that apparently, Chuck Norris had a daughter sometime around 1962. He had no idea he'd had a daughter until 1991 when a girl named Dina Norris reached out to him to tell him he was her father. Talk about a surprise. Norris details all this in his book Against All Odds: My Story.
At the time Dina was born, Norris had been cheating on his first wife. It was probably not a moment he was terribly proud of. It looks more like he's got his act together and now has other children and a loving family with a different woman. When they say that Chuck Norris is the world's most dangerous man, they must not be kidding.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger was in the news recently for a dispute with now President Donald Trump over how the television program The Apprentice was handled when Trump departed the show. This dispute was nothing compared to the battle Schwarzenegger faced when he found out he'd become a father after having an affair with his housekeeper.
In one of the most unexpected love child announcements to hit Hollywood, the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and his housekeeper, Mildred Baena, got together and Baena had a baby. Schwarzenegger's then wife, Maria Shriver, immediately filed for divorce.
Joseph Baena is now an adult and he looks just like his dad. They're not all that close, but Arnold does help financially. Schwarzenegger has moved out of politics and back into acting which seems to have been a wise career choice.
Gavin Rossdale
At one time, Gavin Rossdale was a huge star and a heartthrob for female fans everywhere. The lead singer of the band "Bush" found out that he'd become a father while he was with singer Gwen Stefani. The problem was that the baby wasn't Gwen's. Gavin had an affair with a woman named Pearl Lowe.
It sounds like Rossdale had been seeing Lowe on and off again for five years during the 1980's. He didn’t know of daughter Daisy until she was 15 years old, which was allegedly a major reason for his divorce with Gwen Stefani. Daisy went on to become a fashion model. Gwen Stefani is now a huge star on the show "The Voice" and with Blake Shelton. Gavin Rossdale isn't doing much of anything noteworthy these days.
Eddie Murphy
Easily regarded as one of the funniest men ever, there wasn't really anything funny about how Eddie Murphy found out that he had become a father. The former star of Saturday Night Live, Beverly Hills Cop, Shrek, and other famous comedies dated former Spice Girl, Mel B, who revealed she had been knocked up by Murphy and given birth to a baby boy.
Murphy still doesn't talk about the child and we don't know if he has much to do with him, but it was proven that he is the father. In 2009, Murphy was ordered by the courts to pay a hefty child support bill around $51,000 per month. It's a good thing his acting career did so well because that's a ton of money.
Hugh Grant
At the ripe age of 54, British actor Hugh Grant and his partner, Tinglan Hong, welcomed their first child in 2011. Not long after, they welcomed their second son, Felix, in 2012. In an odd twist that you can only see in a movie, just three months later, news of Hugh’s third child with former Swedish girlfriend, Anna Elisabet Eberstein, came out in the news.
It took some time, but after his love child with Eberstein was more than a year old, Grant signed legal documents acknowledging himself as the father on the birth certificate in 2013. Grant seemed so innocent for so many years and the moment he hit middle age, it all kind of went sideways. At least he's taking responsibility for his actions.
Liam Gallagher
Liam Gallagher was never known to be a nice guy. Popular for being a famous Brit rocker, he was also known to have a huge temper who often throws fits and was almost impossible to get along with. To hear in 2014 that Gallagher wasn't faithful and had an illegitimate child really isn't much of a surprise.
Three years ago, rock journalist, Liza Ghorbani, interviewed Gallagher while on tour with his band, Beady Eye, in New York. The two got together and Ghorbani had a baby. After settling on around $5000 per month in support, Ghorbani wanted more money. In fact, she wanted a lot more money. This was all happening while Gallagher's marriage to All Saints singer Nicole Appleton was falling apart. Unfortunately, baby Gemma had been caught in the middle of everything and DNA tests did, in fact, prove that the baby was his. Perhaps this explains where some of Gallagher's hostility comes from.
Tom Jones
Tom Jones has to be one of the most interesting celebrities on this list. For over 50 years, he's been singing and performing. But it seems to be so hard to tell why he's so popular. Regardless, he was popular enough to get model Katherine Berkery to knock boots with him and the result was the birth of his son, Jonathan Jones-Berkery, in 1987. It wasn’t until 2008 that Jones, now a 72-year old singer, admitted Jonathan was his child.
A DNA test proved Jones was the father. Unfortunately, this story didn't turn out to have a happy ending. Jonathan Berkery, now 28, said he became a gun-carrying drug dealer who slept rough and stayed homeless for years because he was abandoned by his father, who had always refused to acknowledge his existence.
Ludacris
Ludacris is a rapper and actor who's most recent success comes as part of the Fast and Furious movie franchise. His legal name is Christopher Bridges, and in 2014, he admitted to fathering a secret child while on a break from his girlfriend of several years, Eudoxie. The good news was that despite the drama, Eudoxie and Ludacris did work things out.
The not-so-good news was that at the time, it was an interesting court battle. Ludacris admitted to being the daddy so he filed court documents claiming he only made $25,842.41 per month on average. That would have meant his monthly child support payments would cap out at $1,754.66 per month. Clearly, everyone knows Ludacris was worth more than that now. Hopefully, he's seen the error of his ways and done the right thing.
Chris Brown
In February of 2015, Chris Brown revealed he became the father of a baby girl nine months earlier. Her name was Royalty and the mother was video model, Nia Guzman, who was also a long time friend. At that time, that news didn't sit well with Brown's girlfriend, Karrueche Tran, who then broke up with Brown on Twitter suggesting she could only take so much and that she wished the best of luck to Brown and his family. Tran wanted no part of the baby drama.
It did become a dramatic situation too. Even though Brown and Guzman were friends, things got ugly. And in 2016, there were all sorts of custody battles while Brown was dealing with drug and abuse-related issues. The judge ruled that Brown could continue joint custody and other attempts by Guzman to limit Brown's involvement were repeatedly denied. The parents still don't get along and have had some pretty public disputes on social media.
Eric Clapton
While still married to Patti Boyd in 1985, Eric had an affair and eventually produced a daughter (named Ruth) who was kept a secret until 1991. While she was labeled a secret, Eric Clapton was involved in Ruth's life from the start.
Clapton was known to be a serial womanizer and Ruth was the result of a relationship with Yvonne Kelly who ran the legendary Air recording studio on the Caribbean island of Montserrat and Eric was recording an album out there. No one publicly knew about Ruth until Eric's four-year-old son, Conor, tragically died after falling out of a 53rd-floor window from a New York apartment in 1991. At the funeral, Ruth held Eric's hand and people started to put two and two together. Ruth maintains she was never a secret, just that her father Eric was a mess in his personal life and she was never discussed publicly.
DMX
DMX is an American rapper, record producer, and actor. He had a baby in 2016 with longtime girlfriend, Desiree Lindstrom. They welcomed their first child, a baby boy named Exodus Simmons who weighed 6 pounds and 10 ounces. That seems like a happy story. At least it would be if DMX hadn't done this 14 other times.
DMX is easily the winner of celebrity dads with secret kids (if this were a contest, of course). His hit music single, "Party Up (In Here)," must have been how he lived his life because five of his kids are illegitimate and he has over $1.23 million to go to child support. He's been up and down as a father including ending an 11-year marriage when his wife found out that four of his kids were from four different women outside of their marriage. Apparently, DMX needs to learn a little bit about self-control.
