Nepo Babies Who Have Been Open About Their Struggles

Being the child of a celebrity is a double-edged sword. On one hand, there are plenty of perks and privileges that come with the territory, including fancy houses, private jets, and all the parties and premieres you could ever want to attend. But underneath all the clothes, cars, and credit cards, often lies a darker side to being the offspring of the rich and famous — especially if they try to follow in their parents' famous footsteps. Many of these "nepo babies" have been open about the struggles they've faced as they've tried to establish themselves as individuals.

While it's easy for fans to roll their eyes and accuse these celebs of having first-world problems, the truth is that substance abuse and body image issues are unfortunately common. So why do nepo babies sometimes struggle more than those without a well-known surname? Psychologist Jo Hemmings told The Sun that there are several contributing factors, including easy access to drugs, alcohol, and more. She also pointed to imposter syndrome as a reason why these kids may go off the rails. "They never really know whether they've got their career because of who they are, or how talented they are," she explained. "That's difficult for a lot of them." Plus, there are the unavoidable expectations and comparisons that arise. As Hemmings pointed out, "They get much more scrutinized because we all know who they're the child of, and so the spotlight is on them to see if they are going to perform as well as their parents." 

Drew Barrymore stole America's hearts as Gertie in the hit film "E.T."  — but what would you expect from a girl who was part of a Hollywood dynasty? Barrymore comes from a long line of actors who were as famous for their drinking and substance abuse as they were for their talent. At just 7 years old, the precocious tot was living up to the family name. The pint-sized party girl was often spotted in clubs, drinking and using drugs, before landing in a psychiatric hospital at the tender age of 13. 

Those are just a few of the tragic details about Drew Barrymore's life that include, among other things, an emancipation from her parents before she was old enough to vote. For a while, it seemed that Barrymore was destined to be nothing more than a cautionary tale, but then the bubbly talk show host turned it all around. "I think, for me, stopping drinking is one of the most honoring things I can do to the Barrymore name because we have all been such hedonists," she told People. Today, Barrymore is a mom of two, and she has been refreshingly honest about her troubled past with her daughters as well as with the public. She has credited her time spent in the psych ward for her vulnerability. "What the institution taught me was that if you sit around and discuss things and you don't sweep 'em under the carpet, it will get better," she explained to Us Weekly. It's a practice that seems to have worked for this nepo baby.

Being a child with not just one but two famous parents may sound like fun, but there has been plenty of turmoil inside Chet Hanks' relationship with his parents, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson. Living in their shadow brought a truckload of baggage for Chet, who began struggling with substance abuse from the age of 16 and eventually landed in rehab. 

Many of Chet's issues stemmed from his struggles with growing up in a famous family. "My dad is beloved, he's on this pedestal, but for me, it created a lot of contempt," he said in a YouTube video, per Entertainment Tonight, adding that people made assumptions about him before they ever knew him. "People automatically assumed in general that I would just be a really arrogant, entitled, spoiled brat, even though I really wasn't." Chet developed a lot of resentment that ultimately became his downfall. "That defensive attitude, that chip on my shoulder, that posturing, led me down the wrong path, because I felt that I had something to prove," Chet added. "... It just led me down a path of self-destruction through my 20s."

Tom Hanks, who has often been referred to as "America's dad," is the father of four children from two marriages. Chester (Chet) is the oldest of two sons Tom shares with actor and singer Rita Wilson. With his DNA, it's not surprising that Chet tried his hand at both music and acting, and although he landed a few roles, he never achieved the success of his parents.

Like his sister Kaia, Cindy Crawford's son Presley Gerber has grown up to be gorgeous. Underneath that beautiful exterior, however, there was a lot going on that led to some tragic details about Gerber's life. Gerber followed his mom and sis down the runway, but couldn't touch their supermodel status. He later forged his own path, and it was paved with questionable choices, including an arrest for driving under the influence and a face tattoo that read "misunderstood. "Presley is obviously going through a super rebellious phase right now," a source exclusively told Us Weekly at the time. "He is trying to get out of the shadow of his family and find his own way and create his own identity." The source added, "He wants to do his own thing and find his own place in the world."

The public backlash over the tattoo was loud, however, and Gerber took to Instagram Live (per Us Weekly) to call out his haters, inviting them to "come say it to my face." Since then, Crawford's son has opened up about his lifelong struggle with mental health. In an interview on the "Studio 22" podcast, the model said that he wants to help others who are dealing with similar situations. "What I hope I can do is have made the mistakes for other people, so they don't have to make the same mistakes that I made," Gerber said.

What you need to know about Rob Lowe's sons is that the youngest, John Owen, has followed in his famous father's footsteps in more ways than one. Unlike his older brother Matthew, who stayed out of the spotlight, John Owen (who is a doppelgänger for his handsome dad) embraced acting at a young age — that is, until the inevitable comparisons started. 

"The number of times I got compared to my dad, and the number of times he was brought up in conversation, made me so uncomfortable that I wanted to move as far away from that as possible," Owen told Men's Health. Insecurity led to a drug and alcohol addiction that started in his early teens.  "Many times I could have died," he confessed. "I really liked to push the limits of my body and numb out as much as I could. It makes me sad to think about. There's a certain level of self-doubt, or uncomfortability with one's self. The more insecure I grew, the more aggressively I used — to medicate."

In the '80s, Rob Lowe was notorious for his hard-partying ways before he got sober in his mid-20s. Watching his youngest son make the same mistakes was heartbreaking for the actor and his wife Sheryl, who tried everything to help Owen. "Finally the thing that worked was when they said, 'We love you and we're scared,'" Owen said. Today, Owen is sober, and he has worked alongside his dad on the former Netflix series "Unstable." 

Beautiful and talented, Alexa Ray Joel has made a name for herself in the music industry, but it came at a price. The daughter of supermodel Christie Brinkley and iconic singer-songwriter Billy Joel felt the pressure of her parentage from birth. Would she be as beautiful as her mother? Would she share her father's talent? The answer was yes, but not in the ways people expected, and the public can be cruel. In a 2013 interview with Social Life Magazine (per Page Six), Alexa said, "The media was a little rough on me," and added, "They used to pick on my looks, and I used to care too much about how they perceived me." A self-described painfully shy late bloomer, Alexa has discussed dealing with depression throughout her life, a fact that came to light when the singer was hospitalized for an overdose in 2009. 

Since that time, Alexa has been an advocate for mental health awareness and has stepped into her own spotlight as a musical artist. She has both released her own music and sometimes accompanied her father on stage.  The stunning transformation of Alexa Ray from shy kid to confident performer was more than just internal. She transformed physically as well, though she swears she's only had a nose job. "My beauty is very different from my mother's," she said. "My music is very different from my father's [...] I would just like people to have an open mind."

The baddest of the bad boys, Martin Sheen's son Charlie Sheen has been in and out of rehab, jail, and the tabloids too many times to count. Notorious for his hard-partying ways, the "Hot Shots" actor has been married and divorced three times, hospitalized for a cocaine overdose, and arrested multiple times for allegedly assaulting women. At the height of his antics, he admitted to E! News that "there was really nothing left except a funeral or a wake or something awful."  

Growing up with his famous father, Charlie inherited more than just acting chops. Charlie Sheen and Martin Sheen's father-son bond included a shared love of alcohol. In his Netflix Documentary "aka Charlie Sheen," the "Major League" star revealed that his father also dealt with addiction, and shared that he and his dad were often at odds with one another, thanks largely to Charlie's behavior and drug problems. "I can't imagine being my dad. I can't even imagine it," he told Daily Beast. "We banged heads a lot over the years." 

Today, the former star of "Two and a Half Men" is sober, but not unscathed. In fact, Charlie Sheen is realistic about his Hollywood future after years of chaos, realizing that much of it is out of his hands. "All I can control is my reaction to things," he told People about getting back into the biz, saying this "in and of itself is a daily battle."

People are concerned about Cher's son, Elijah Blue Allman, and for good reason. His issues with drug addiction have led to some pretty scary moments for the only child of Cher and the late Gregg Allman, including a kidnapping allegedly orchestrated by his mom to get him to rehab (an accusation she has denied). Allman grew up surrounded by fame and fortune, and began using drugs before he even hit his teens. "It wasn't like a sex drugs and rock and roll household, but you know there were a lot of big parties and there was an era for that," he told Entertainment Tonight. In another interview with Entertainment Tonight (per Us Weekly), Allman explained that he started with marijuana and ecstasy around age 11, before moving on to harder substances. "I [was] just looking to escape all the things in my past, and that's when you turn to those kind of drugs, you know, heroin and opiates," he explained.

Part of what Allman was trying to escape was feelings of unworthiness. "When you go to boarding school at 7 years old, it's kind of hard to feel like you're not being shunned," he told Entertainment Tonight. Allman has had a rocky relationship with his iconic mom over the years, but she claimed she has tried everything to help him. "I could fill a ... I don't even know, something gigantic with what I don't know [about parenting]," Cher told People. "I just keep trying."

In the world of rock and roll, long-term marriages aren't all that common, but Jon Bon Jovi and his high school sweetheart-turned-wife Dorothea have managed not only to stay afloat, but also to raise their four children in a somewhat normal environment away from the glare of the spotlight. Even so, that doesn't mean that kids don't get into trouble, and Jon Bon Jovi's daughter Stephanie Rose experienced an alleged heroine overdose and an arrest for drug possession (although the charges were dismissed). "It happens to a lot of families that you would never know," Dorothea told People. "We dealt with it as a family."

Although many fans were supportive and sympathetic, some speculated that being the daughter of a rock star was a contributing factor — something Jon, who said he was never a drug user, was quick to shut down. "I wasn't aware of it, not because I'm not home but because it is a different world," he told Mirror of his daughter's drug use. "There's a lot of pressure on this generation. They have a lot easier access to things than yours or my generation had," he added. Stephanie recovered, and the family has worked together to put the ordeal behind them. "I feel it was a terrible tragic lesson of life but I thank God every day because she is whole," the singer said. "It happened and it has gone."

The youngest of three daughters born to actors Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, Tallulah Willis has had self-esteem issues for most of her life. "I haven't felt OK with who I am since I was 11 years old," she wrote in Teen Vogue in 2015. "I was a big tornado of doubt and self-hate, uncomfortable in my own skin." Part of that was due to intense public criticism on social media over her looks when she was still in her formative years. Part was also due to her parents' divorce. Tallulah described her life as a "dumpster fire" when her mom married Ashton Kutcher, and said on an episode of "Red Table Talk" that, "I felt very forgotten and I felt like I developed and I nurtured a narrative that she didn't love me," Tallulah confessed.

Struggling with undiagnosed mental health issues as well, Tallulah turned to drugs and alcohol to ease the pain. She developed an eating disorder and endured what she described in Teen Vogue as an "overwhelming" depression during her college years. "I was so removed from my body and from my mind that it was like I was living in a cardboard replica of what life should be," she explained. Today, after years of treatment and therapy, Tallulah is sober and in a better place with her family — and herself — but she takes things one day at a time. "In the past I was so afraid of being destroyed by sadness, but finally I feel that I can show up and be relied upon," she wrote in Vogue in 2023.

If you need help with an eating disorder, or know someone who does, help is available. Visit the National Eating Disorders Association website or contact NEDA's Live Helpline at 1-800-931-2237. You can also receive 24/7 Crisis Support via text (send NEDA to 741-741). 

The only nepo baby on this list more notorious for his behavior than Charlie Sheen might be Robert Downey Jr. Commonly acknowledged as one of the best actors of his generation, Downey's drug use began when he was just a child, when his father, director Robert Downey, passed his 8-year-old son a joint. That one act might have gotten the ball rolling on what would become a life filled with substance use, rehab (which he famously busted out of on more than one occasion), and the inevitable incarceration.

Robert Downey Jr. has made some pretty candid remarks about serving jail time. On the "Armchair Expert" podcast, the "Ironman" star told host Dax Shepard that it was "arguably the most dangerous place I've ever been in my life." He added, "It was kind of like just being in a really bad neighborhood, and there was no opportunity there; there was only threats."

Downey survived the depths of his addiction to rise out of the ashes in one of the greatest career comeback stories in Hollywood, and he even earned an Oscar for his role in "Oppenheimer." The acclaimed actor is now sober, a fact he is quick to credit to his wife, producer Susan Levin. In his Oscar acceptance speech, he thanked Levin and said, "She found me, a snarling rescue pet, and [she] loved me back to life," and added, "That's why I am here."

Good looks and a famous family can be a recipe for disaster, as Michael Douglas' son Cameron Douglas found out the hard way. Like so many nepo babies, Cameron started using drugs — including marijuana, cocaine, and crystal meth — well before his 18th birthday, later graduating to liquid cocaine and heroine. In his book, "Long Way Home," per ABC News, he wrote that he was "playing a game of chicken" with his life. In an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC News, both Douglas men talked about Cameron's addiction and how it affected their family. "You rack your brain and you take it personally in the beginning, you start blaming yourself," Michael confessed. "Then you look at your genetic makeup. I should've changed my priorities," he added. "My career was first. My career came before my family."

Cameron, who admitted that he was "probably pretty close" to death, wrote in his book that he idolized his Oscar-winning father. And where Michael once blamed himself for Cameron's problems, Cameron was quick to assume his own responsibility. "I made bad decisions. I had little regard for my own life," he told Daily Mail. In fact, Cameron credited his father, grandfather Kirk Douglas, and stepmother Catherine Zeta-Jones for helping him find his way back from the edge. After doing seven years in federal prison (a place he compared to a war zone), Cameron is now sober and the father of a little girl.

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).