DMX
A list of celebrity deadbeat dads, loosely ranked by fame and popularity. The men on this list have succeeded in many areas of their lives: they are rich, famous, and successful, for the most part. But all of these gents have, at some point or another, failed as fathers.
Whether they have refused to pay child support, neglected their children, denied them, abused them, or crossed the line in other ways, these famous fathers let down the very people who were counting on them. While some of these bad dads have redeemed themselves and turned over a new leaf, others have not.
Deadbeat dad alert! Rapper DMX, whose real name is Earl Simmons, was arrested in NYC for failure to pay more than $400,000 in child support. The 44 year old was taken into custody just before he was set to perform as Master of Ceremony at a Radio City Music Hall concert in June 2015.
Gabriel Aubrey
In addition to his child support issues, DMX also had outstanding warrants for bail jumping and aggravated unlicensed motor vehicle operation. He was later sentenced to six months in jail.
According to TMZ, Halle Berry has been paying her model baby daddy Gabriel Aubry $16,000 a month in child support for their 6-year-old daughter, Nahla. The money has been flowing in since 2011, when they were awarded joint custody of their daughter.
Karl Malone
Since then, Aubrey has been taking advantage of the situation and living ENTIRELY off child support rather than getting a job or, you know, saving that money for their child.
Michael Lohan
You may know him as one of the greatest NBA players of all time but he’s also (lesser) known for 1) blowing off his 3 children during most of his career 2) telling his own son it was “too late” for a relationship at his High School graduation and 3) not seeing two of his children (twins), at all, until a popular tabloid broke the story of their existence 17-years later.
Lindsay Lohan’s alcoholic and cocaine-addicted dad refused to pay child support, pimped his daughter hard in the entertainment industry and blamed everyone else (including his wife) for destroying her.
Dennis Rodman
If anyone is responsible for Lilo’s spiral into dysfunction, it’s probably him.
The former Chicago Bulls star and Kim Jong Un-bestie, Dennis Rodman, was ordered to pay half of a million dollars in back child support to his ex-wife, Michelle Rodman, in 2012.
Val Kilmer
Earlier that year, the basketball player was ordered to perform more than 100 hours of community service for missed payments in 2009 and 2010.
Matthew Knowles
In 2011, Val Kilmer's ex-wife, Joanne Whalley, claimed that the "Batman Forever" actor had fallen behind on his $27,500 per month child support payments for their two kids.
Beyonce's father and ex-manager Matthew Knowles has been accused of having various affairs--one of which produced a love child whom he has largely ignored.
Bobby Brown
He was also accused of stealing money by his own world-famous daughter and was eventually dropped from her management team.
Bobby Brown -- who was famously married to the late Whitney Houston for 15 years -- has a history of skipping out on his child support payments.
Evander Holyfield
The R&B singer/songwriter served jail time for missed payments on several occasions, including in 2007 when he spent three days in a county jail for owing nearly $20,000 in child support and court fees to his ex, Kim Ward.
The Champ reportedly owes $327,858.36 in child support for his 12 children by 6 women.
Francois-Henri Pinault
If the boxing legend doesn’t pay up soon, his driver’s license could be suspended, which explains why he continues to waddle into the ring and get his butt kicked at age 50.
In 2011, supermodel Linda Evangelista's attorney accused her ex-husband, billionaire Francois-Henry Pinault, of "sitting back and paying zero" towards child support for their son Augie.
Terrell Owens
Pinault -- who is now married to Salma Hayek -- denied the claim.
Over the years, former NFL bad boy Terrell Owens has had trouble keeping up with child support payments to the four women with whom he has kids.
Allen Iverson
In spite of making roughly $80 million during his football career, Owens claimed in 2011 that he was broke and filed legal documents to reduce the cost of the payments.
Tawanna Iverson, Allen Iverson’s ex-wife, claims that he’s a deadbeat dad who emptied their joint account that she used to support their 5 children after she filed for divorce, leaving her completely broke.
Jude Law
Iverson, who made around $200 million over the course of his NBA career, has continuously refused to pay and has gone to court multiple times.
By most accounts, Jude Law is a great father to the 3 children he shares with his ex-wife Sadie Frost. It's the fourth, illegitimate child that he denied having until a paternity test proved otherwise that has given him his bad dad rep.
Jermaine Dupri
After the paternity test, Jude Law did take steps to responsibly support his daughter, Sophia, and his baby's mama, Samantha Burke, a "model" he had a one night stand with. But he still occasionally forgets about her in public.
A few years ago, rapper/producer Jermaine Dupri missed child support payments to baby mama Sarai Jones, with whom he had a then-seven-month-old baby girl.
Levi Johnston
He was unable to pay the $2,500 per month plus $7,500 fee because of financial hardships and Jones sued him for the money.
Skeet Ulrich
Levi Johnston -- who had a son with Sarah Palin's (unmarried) daughter, Bristol in December 2008 -- reportedly owes $67k in unpaid child support, but continues to blow his money on guns and other "manly" expenses, rather than on his son, Tripp.
Flavor Flav
In January 2013, 90s actor Skeet Ulrich -- best known for his role on "Scream" -- was charged in court for being late on his child support payments to his ex-wife, Georgina Cates.
Edward Furlong
Public Enemy rapper Flavor Flav faced a 180-day jail sentence in May 2012 after he failed to pay more than $111,000 in back child support to Angie Parker -- the mother of three of his seven children.
This former child star (Terminator 2, Pet Cemetery Two, American Heart) has sadly been in an unhealthy pattern of drug abuse, arrests, alcoholism and court cases for a good part of the last decade.
Nas
There have been reports of domestic abuse and tens of thousands of dollars of unpaid child support...but the worst accusation came back in December 2012, when his wife claimed that their 6-year-old son tested positive for cocaine after he visited him.
In 2009, Nas' ex-wife, Milkshake singer Kelis, who was then 8-months pregnant, filed for divorce after she found out that he had cheated on her. She then made it known that she was broke and Nas wouldn't pay her a dime.
David Hasselhoff
They were in and out of court for years until Nas was ordered to pay serious $$$.
In 2007, David Hasselhoff won a permanent spot in the Bad Dad Hall of Fame when his teenage daughter Taylor released a humiliating home video of him lying on the floor in a drunken stupor...eating a hamburger. If it wasn't so goddamn funny, it would be really sad.
Bruce Jenner
See the viral David Hasselhoff x Carl's Jr. commercial mashup above.
Bruce Jenner should be commended for stepping in and treating the Kardashian siblings like his own children but unfortunately he was so busy with his new family that he neglected his old one. Son Brody Jenner was forced to grow up without his father for the first decade of his life. Still holding a grudge, the topic came up during a taping of “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” after Brody watched his dad interact with his younger sisters Kyle and Kendall.
Charlie Sheen
“The way I see Bruce with Kendall and Kylie and Brandon, I’m actually so happy for them,” Brody said in the confessional. “I think Bruce is an incredible human being and I think that Bruce is an incredible father. He just wasn’t a great father to me.”
You can call Charlie Sheen a lot of things: hardcore party-goer, highest paid television actor but you really cannot call him a great dad. The “Anger Management” star has been accused of domestic violence and when his latest ex-wife Brooke Mueller lost custody of his twin boys, it wasn’t Sheen who stepped in to care for them full-time but his other ex-wife, Denise Richards.
50 Cent
The arrangement worked well for a while but soon Richards wanted to give up custody of Sheen’s boys after taking care of them for months and to thank her in return, Sheen tried to have her and her children (two of them are his) evicted from her home.
Rapper 50 Cent left the hood behind with his platinum, chart-topping album “Get Rich or Die Tryin” and after his son got older, he was accused of leaving him behind, too. Last year, he had a falling out with his teenaged son Marquise over a text conversation and they have been estranged ever since.
Eddie Murphy
The “In Da Club” rapper has accused Marquise’s mother of continuously using him and his child support to take care of herself and believes his son has been brainwashed. Fiddy was noticeably absent from his son’s high school graduation earlier this year.
After splitting from his wife of more than a decade, Eddie Murphy was involved in a brief relationship with former Spice Girl Melanie Brown. Their union barely lasted a year but they were together long enough to create a child. In 2007, she gave birth to their daughter Angel Iris on his 46th birthday and even after a paternity test proved he was the father, the “Dr.
Jon Gosselin
Doolittle” star still refused to claim his last born child. For several years, Murphy was against having a relationship with Angel but in 2010 he had finally come around.
Ugh, as if we needed to hear about Jon Gosselin again. We have tried to purge our system of the Jon and Kate debacle, and we all know that Jon is never going to be dad of the year. In what started as an innocent television series showcasing two parents who are in charge of 8 children, Jon has proven himself to be a deadbeat dad.
Alec Baldwin
We could see that he had no interest in being a pivotal person in his children’s lives, and after his divorce, he has been seen with younger women and drugs in a party lifestyle. Need we say more?
Back in 2007, Alec Baldwin made headlines when a voicemail message leaked to the media during which he berates his then-11-year-old daughter for missing a scheduled phone call. (Gee, wonder why she didn't want to take his call.) Alec proceeded to call his daughter a "thoughtless little pig," among other things.
Al Bundy
We won't even get into what he said about his ex-wife, Kim Basinger. Yikes.
Smug and unhappy with his plot in life, Al Bundy of Married with Children rarely left the couch, where he sat happily with one hand down the front of his pants.
Casey Aldridge
He doesn't seem to care much that his son, Bud, is a little horn-dog and that his daughter, Kelly, is the epitome of a "dumb blond" as well as being promiscuous … to say the least.
Soon after daughter Maddie Briann was born, rumors started circulating that Jaime Lynn Spears' baby daddy (a.k.a.Casey Aldridge) was having affairs while the young Spears was pregnant. He denies the allegations, of course.
Steven Tyler
When Maddie Briann was just 10 months, Casey flipped his truck after having too much fun at a bachelor party. Way to set an example, Dad!
Being a rock star doesn't excuse you from parenting responsibilities – at least according to Steven Tyler's daughter Liv. In an interview with Wonderland magazine this year, Liv Tyler revealed, " You know that relationship is still sort of hard. He's very busy, my dad.
I wish, I wish, I really wish he was around more, to know Milo more, and... but he has to go through what he goes through." C'mon, Steven -- step up to the plate. You are missing out on not only fatherhood, but also grandfather-hood!