Celebrities Who Were Raised by Their Grandparents
Family isn’t the typical nuclear fashion that so many Hollywood projects would have you believe. There are found families, families with a single parent, and families where the grandparents are the caregivers. There are millions of families where a grandparent is raising their children’s child; and even quite a few celebrities’ childhoods were like that. That’s right, quite a few celebrities were raised by their grandparents.
As of Sept 2024, it was discovered that over 2.4 million children are being raised in kinship/grandfamilies in the US alone, according to Veera Korhonen via Statista.
Hundreds of thousands of children are being raised by their grandparents, and celebrities are no different. Did you know that stars like Pierce Brosnan and Oprah were briefly raised by their grandparents? Or that stars like Jamie Foxx and Kellie Pickler were raised by their grandparents their whole lives?
There are way more celebrities who were raised by their grandparents than you may have thought (including two former US Presidents)!
Below, see all of them, and the stories of how these celebrities ended up being raised by their grandparents.
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Jamie Foxx
Jamie Foxx was raised by his grandparents virtually his entire life. Shortly after his birth, he was actually adopted and raised by his mother’s adoptive parents, per Washington Post.
“When I act like a fool, she beat me. She whupped me. . . . ,” Foxx said during his Oscar’s acceptance speech in 2006 for his role in Ray. “Now she talks to me in my dreams. I can’t wait to go to sleep tonight because we got a lot to talk about. I love you.”
Maya Angelou
After legendary writer and poet Maya Angelou’s parents divorced, she was three years old, and they sent her to live with her paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson, per Women’s History.
Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson
Curtis Jackson, also known as “50 Cent,” lived with his grandparents from eight years old til adulthood. They raised him after the death of his mother, who died in a fire. Tragically, his grandmother died in 2015, and his grandfather died in 2024, per BET.
“I grew up with my grandparents. We were living on my grandfather’s income. He was real old-fashioned. He is a representation of tradition for me,” he said to the outlet. “He would come [home] and give my grandmother his check, and I never understood that growing up […] Later, as an adult, he said, ‘You couldn’t see it and you won’t understand it ’cause you were a baby, but I gave your mama the check to stop her from looking at things I couldn’t give her.’”
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey lived with her grandmother from the time she was an infant to nine years old, where she was sent back to live with her mother, per The Guardian.
Al Pacino
When Al Pacino was two-years old, his parents divorced, and his mother took him to the South Bronx to live with his grandparents, Kate and James Gerardi.
Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson was quite young when his mother passed away, and when his father abandoned him and his sister to remarry. After those incidents, he and his sister were raised by their grandparents, who were both so loving and taught them to love music, per The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock.
Blac Chyna
Okay, so Blac Chyna’s parents are Sharlana “Tokyo Toni” Hunter and Eric Holland, but per Distractify, as a child, Chyna was mainly raised by her maternal grandmother.
Dylan McDermott
Dylan McDermott had lived with his grandma for a while, alongside his mother and sister. However, in 1967, his mother was tragically murdered by her boyfriend, and thus, he and his sister were raised by their maternal grandmother until adulthood.
Eric Clapton
So, Eric Clapton’s childhood wasn’t a typical upbringing. Per NBCNews, he grew up believing that his grandmother, Rose, and her second husband were his parents, and that his mother was actually his older sister, since she had him when she was a teenager. While they were together for a while, his mother did end of marrying and leaving him with his grandparents to be raised.
Carol Burnett
While her parents remained in her life for a bit after they divorced, Carol Burnett moved in with her grandmother, and was raised by her for the bulk of her life.
Kellie Pickler
Okay, so country singer Kellie Pickler lived with her grandparents for a very long time. Her mother left her when she was two years old, so her paternal grandparents, Faye and Clyde Pickler, raised her until she was four. She went back to her mother until she was 12, when the courts ordered her to live with her grandparents. They raised her to adulthood!
Per Grand Magazine, she credits them for her love of music, saying, “[Grandma] had a collection of children’s books, and one of those was a songbook. We would sit on the swing on the front porch, and I would just sing my heart out.”
Jack Nicholson
You’ve probably heard of this, but in case you haven’t: Jack Nicholson was raised by his grandparents, but he didn’t know they were his grandparents. He believed that they were his parents, and that his mother was his sister. He didn’t find out the truth until decades after.
Barack Obama
Former US President Barack Obama was mainly raised by his grandparents. He moved in with them when he was 10 and they mainly raised him into adulthood, per Biography.
Bill Clinton
Former US President Bill Clinton was raised by his grandparents for a few years in his childhood, while his mother was working to get her nursing degree. He was with his grandparents for around four years, per The List.
Pierce Brosnan
When Pierce Brosnan was only four years old, he was sent to live with his maternal grandparents, Philip and Kathleen Smith; after his father abandoned their family and his mother was in London working as a nurse. His mother came home one to two times a year to see him.
However,m after the deaths of his grandparents, he went to live with an aunt and uncle, but then was sent to a boarding home. according to The Famous People.
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