After Brooklyn Beckham’s bombshell Instagram post describing alleged mistreatment by his family, even more celebrities who have become estranged from relatives have been revealed.
The Beckham drama has been on a lot of people’s mind ever since posts were shared to his Instagram Stories on Monday (January 19).
Brooklyn's claims about his parents, David and Victoria having tried to 'ruin his relationship', while his mum tried to 'dance inappropriately on him in front of everyone', were a shock to fans of the famous UK family.
Brooklyn, who married Nicola Peltz in 2022, went into detail about the rift between him and the rest of his family, and while a lot of online commenters found it hard to accept, it’s not uncommon for celebrities to speak out about their relatives.
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In fact, there are a number of celebs that are estranged from their family, but you might not have heard about it before.
Let’s get into it.
Mariah Carey
Probably one of the most heartbreaking endings to estrangement we’ve seen in the media, the ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ singer revealed all about the reasons behind her distancing herself from older sister Alison, who passed away on the same day as her mother, Patricia in 2024.
“My sister, I hadn’t seen in years. And I feel really badly about that as well. But that’s ‘cause I tend to have a guilt complex about everything, but it’s tough. My sister had an extremely hard life,” she told Gayle King of her relationship.
In her 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the singer went on to claim that it was ‘emotionally and physically safer for me not to have any contact' with her sister.
She revealed that her sister had exposed her to drugs and older men as a teenager, and in one instance, threw boiling tea at her which left her with ‘third degree burns’.
At that point, she decided to end their relationship.
Alison later sued Carey for what she wrote, but the Sun wrote that the outcome was unknown.
Rihanna
The ‘Disturbia’ singer has been open about her struggles with her late father, Ronald Fenty before his passing at 70 years old in May 2025 following a ‘brief illness.’
In 2009, Rihanna recalled her parents’ marriage when speaking to Diane Sawyer as ‘abusive' and that her parents’ marriage affected her health, giving her headaches at age eight.
She told Entertainment Weekly in 2007: “I had to go through a lot of CAT scans. They even thought it was a tumor.”
But her relationship with her father was the most challenging.
After her 2009 assault by Chris Brown, her father spoke to the press about it without Rihanna’s consent, with her revealing two years later in an interview with Vogue, that it was ‘really strange’.
"You grow up with your father, you know him, you are a part of him, for goodness' sakes!" she said, per Billboard. "And then he does something so bizarre that I can’t begin to wrap my mind around it."
In 2021, she then sued him and claimed he was using her name for financial gain.
It was reported that he had started a talent development company in 2017 called Fenty Entertainment, posing as Rihanna‘s manager so that he could gain more clients.
According to the BBC, however, three weeks before it was set to go to court, she filed to dismiss it.
Macaulay Culkin
Macaulay and was born to Christopher Cornelius ‘Kit’ Culkin and Patricia Brentrup, and while he was shooting to fame with his 1990 Home Alone flick, his home life was challenging.
He became estranged from Kit after he and Brentrup separated in 1995 and in March last year, the actor admitted he had not spoken to his father since he ‘wanted nothing to do with my father’ in the 1990s.
"I haven't spoken to him in, what would it be, about 30-something years?" Macaulay said on an episode of Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson's Sibling Revelry podcast. "He deserves it, too. He's a man who - he has seven kids, and now he has four grandkids, and none of them want anything to do with him."
In 2018, whilst appearing on WTF with Marc Maron, he explained that his dad was not a good person, and was abusive, both mentally and physically.
"[He said] 'Do good or I'll hit you.' He was a bad man. He was abusive, physically and mentally - I can show you all my scars if I wanted to.”
He added: "Everything he tried to do in life, I excelled at before I was 10 years old.”
In 1997, Culkin then removed both parents from his finances in a landmark court case after realizing he was worth $50 million, and that his father was hiding his wealth from him.
Kristin Cavallari
The MTV Laguna Beach star recently revealed her soured relationship with her father, and hadn’t spoken to him in three years.
“I mean, honestly, and this might sound messed up to some people, but it's the best decision I've ever made, cutting my dad out of my life. Such a weight has been lifted from me,” she told PEOPLE.
“There's not one day where I miss him. I don't know if it was two or three years ago, but I mean, I was an adult, let's say I was 35 [when I decided]. It was 35 years of buildup to that point.”
Cavallari said she made the choice to protect her kids, stating: “He crossed the boundary with my kids.”
The actress shares Camden, 13, Jaxon, 11, and daughter Saylor, 10, with ex-husband, former NFL star Jay Cutler, 42.
“Like, you're just gaslighting me. I don't have time for that anymore,” she explained of the incident, adding: “If someone's not bringing you joy, if people are only bringing you hurt and sadness and anger, what is the point? Even if it's a parent, life's too short.”
Ariel Winter
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The Modern Family alum, who had been working onscreen since she was four years old, has been honest about the reason why she doesn’t see her mother anymore.
When the actress was 14, the Department of Child and Family Protective Services removed her from her home, after alleged abuse.
It was then that she was placed with her older sister, Shanelle Gray, and both of them went on to accuse their mother, Chrisoula Workman, of physical and emotional abuse.
At 17, the was able to become legally emancipated and declared an adult, announcing at the time: "I am now officially emancipated!!! I'm really lucky I have an amazing support system and lovely people in my life who have given me the support and guidance to have been given this wonderful opportunity."
Workman has been incredibly vocal about denying the claims, having appeared on a number of interviews to contest the abuse.
Demi Lovato
Lovato, a household name for many due to their long singing and acting career, is close to her mother and sister...but not with their father.
In 2019, Lovato opened up about their feelings on being estranged from their dad in their Instagram Stories on Father’s Day.
"Trying not to wake up sad ... Trying to stay positive. Today is always so difficult," the singer wrote. "This is for anyone else who's lost a father, can't be with their dad, didn't know their dad, or anyone who has a tough relationship with their dad."
They continued: "I spent many years on this holiday wondering whether or not I should call him. Take it from me, if you can, make the call."
Lovato wrote that they sometimes regretted not reaching out, writing: "but other days I'm proud of myself for holding my boundary because I was doing what was best for me and my mental health."
"It's complicated, and I wish it were different but this made me into the person I am today," Lovato wrote, adding that their ‘heart goes out to the people still holding their boundaries as well.’
Patrick Lovato died in June 2013, and the singer revealed their thoughts on him in a 2015 video series about making their Confident album, which included a song called ‘Father’.
"I was very conflicted when he passed because he was abusive," Lovato. "He was mean, but he wanted to be a good person, and he wanted to have his family."
Lovato added: "He knew he wasn't capable of raising a family, and it was because of his mental illness. To know that it wasn't fully his fault really was saddening to me. I wanted to write about it. I wanted to process it."
Adele
The UK songstress has told tales of heartbreak throughout her life in the form of songs, but you may not have known that in private, she was battling her relationship with her father.
Adele previously spoke of how her father abandoned her at age three, and how she reconciled with him days before his death in 2021.
Speaking to Oprah Winfrey as part of her two-hour CBS special Adele One Night Only, she said that dad Mark Evans, in Wales, died in May from bowel cancer.
"My dad's absolute lack of presence and effort... But I finally understood that it was the alcohol... It took my dad from me," she said. "I hurt the first, not in a malicious way, but protect herself.”
“I felt that huge gaping hole filled,” Adele said of the conversation she had with her father. “We forgave each other. We found our peace together, and then I played the album to him on Zoom.”
Evans once spoke of his relationship with his daughter and how alcohol contributed to to the collapse of their relationship as he said per Smooth Radio: "I was putting away two litres of vodka and seven or eight pints of Stella every day. I drank like that for three years. God only knows how I survived it."
Drew Barrymore
Barrymore is a well-known actress and has been that way since she was a very small child.
However, you might not have known that her career would prove to be the reason why she distanced herself from her mother.
When she became famous at seven years old, her mother, Jaid, quit her job as a waitress to be her manager...which was not appreciated.
She revealed to PEOPLE in 1989: “I came to resent her because it seemed so much [of her] life and career was invested in me.”
However, as she got older, she said she came to learn: “What I never realized was my mom changed her life so I could continue doing something I loved.”
However, by eight, she was partying with her mom up to five nights a week, and exposed to drugs.
As she got older, their unorthodox relationship became something she wanted to get away from.
By 14 she was legally emancipated after her mother placed her under a psychiatric hold at 13 due to her wild girl habits.
“We parted ways when I was fourteen, and we have rarely spoken since,” Drew wrote in her tell-all memoir, Wildflower.
Leighton Meester
Meester, known for her iconic role as Blair Waldorf in Gossip Girl, had a troubling start to life as her mother was serving time behind bars for drug smuggling when she was born.
Born in April 1986 in a Texas halfway house, Meester in an interview with Us Weekly shared how her mom, Constance, gave birth to her at the start of a 10-year prison sentence for smuggling marijuana from Jamaica into the United States.
Meester said: "I think it just makes me appreciate the things that I have now," she told the publication.
When Meester's mom was arrested on drug charges, she was reportedly working alongside Meester's dad, Meester's grandfather, and the actress' aunt, and all who were involved were busted.
She revealed that she was scouted as an actress, and her life changed after struggling to afford to live.
But the actress reportedly been sending her unemployed mother $7,500 every month and later accused her of spending it on ‘plastic surgery, Botox, and hair extensions,’ according to TMZ.
When Meester cut her mom off, her mother allegedly tried to convince Meester that they had an oral contract requiring her ‘to pay her $10,000 a month for life,’ per TMZ.
Her mom also apparently threatened to file a lawsuit, and so she filed one of her own.
In 2021, a judge agreed there was no contract between mom and daughter.
Topics: Mariah Carey, Music, Celebrity, Brooklyn Beckham, David Beckham, Adele, Macaulay Culkin, Rihanna
Britt Jones