CONTENT WARNING: This post discusses emotional and physical abuse, as well as substance misuse.
In the unlikely event that you missed it, Brooklyn Beckham recently exploded our timelines by airing his grievances with his famous parents, David and Victoria Beckham, in a scathing 821-word statement posted to his Instagram Story. And the public drama is so monumentally messy that it’s giving the Kardashians a run for their money.
Naturally, the chaos got me thinking about other big family dramas in the celebrity world, and as it turns out, there are loads — tons of which you’ve probably forgotten about, too.
So, without further ado, here’s a detailed roundup of some horrifically messy and super sad times that celebs aired their family drama with the world.
1.
DEMI MOORE AND HER DAUGHTERS
Around the time of her 2011 separation from ex-husband Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore broke her 20-year sobriety and began abusing substances, leading to a near-death experience at a party in 2012. In her 2019 memoir, Inside Out, Demi wrote about this difficult time in her life and explained how it destroyed her relationship with her three daughters: Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah, whom she shares with her first husband, Bruce Willis.
“The girls were angry I’d become so dependent on Ashton,” Demi wrote. “I was addicted to him, is the best way I can put it, and I did all the things that addicts do. I prioritized my addiction over my needs and the needs of my family.” The rift became so bad that Scout and Tallulah didn’t speak to their mom for three years, while Rumer would check in with Demi occasionally when friends of the family would express concern for her well-being.
During a 2019 appearance on Red Table Talk alongside Rumer and Demi, Tallulah explained her side of the estrangement, saying: “She relapsed when I was nine, and no one in our family spoke about it…There were many years of saying she was sober and she wasn’t, and we couldn’t trust it.” In the same interview, Rumer said that her mom’s focus on Ashton made her and her sisters feel that they weren’t “enough.” To this, Demi agreed that her codependency on Ashton was “more devastating” than her substance abuse, because it took her away from her kids “emotionally.”
Demi went to rehab in 2012 to seek treatment for addiction and an eating disorder. Demi and her daughters are thankfully in a great place now, with the actor saying in 2021 that the 2020 lockdowns served as valuable bonding time for the family.
2.
MACAULAY CULKIN AND HIS DAD
During his child-acting career throughout the ’80s and ’90s, Macaulay was managed by his father, Kit Culkin. Starting in the early 2000s, the Home Alone star has claimed that Kit was “abusive” and would physically harm him, his siblings, and his mom, Patricia Brentrup. “He beat our spirits down…You really just had to be there to see what kind of a man he was,” Macaulay told New York magazine back in 2001.
After Patricia and Kit split in 1995, Macaulay gained control of his earnings to help his mom financially. In the legal battle, Kit denied claims of physical abuse. After Kit’s name was removed from Macaulay’s trust fund, he abandoned the custody trial. Kit and Macaulay have been estranged ever since, and the now-45-year-old actor has maintained his abuse claims, making it clear that a reconciliation is not on the cards.
“I haven’t spoken to him in about 30-something years,” the actor said on the Sibling Revelry podcast in April 2025. “Oh, he deserves it, too. He’s a man who — he had seven kids, and now he has four grandkids. And, none of them want anything to do with him.”
3.
SHANNA MOAKLER AND HER KIDS
Since Travis Barker began publicly dating Kourtney Kardashian in 2021, Travis’s ex-wife, Shanna Moakler, has made numerous allegations about the Kardashian family and how they apparently “destroyed” her relationship with her kids, Landon and Alabama Barker. “The Kardashians are buying my kids Prada every other day,” she told Us Weekly back in 2021. “They’re going on lavish trips. They’re doing all these things…I don’t think it’s great when they put a wedge in between their biological mother.”
Alabama and Landon have publicly suggested that Shanna hasn’t always been the best mom to them, with Landon once describing her as an “absent parent.” Alabama also bashed Shanna via Instagram Stories in 2021, asking fans to “stop painting her out to be an amazing mom.” In 2024, the family feud reached new heights when Shanna appeared on the Dumb Blonde podcast and accused Kourtney and Travis of “parental alienation,” as well as branding the Kardashian family as “disgusting.” Giving a direct callout to her estranged kids, Shanna said, “Go do what you guys need to do, and when you’re ready, I will be here loving you unconditionally. And I will be here as your mother, and I will wait.”
At the time, Alabama seemed to cryptically respond to her mom’s messy quotes with an Instagram Story about distancing herself from people who constantly let her down. That was two years ago, and it seems Landon and Alabama still spend most of their time with Travis. For her part, Shanna has denied accusations that she’s a “deadbeat mom,” telling People in 2024: “I have a very close relationship with my children who are now adults…They have both taken back what they said about me and apologized.” Speaking on a TikTok livestream in December 2025, Alabama said that she and her mom don’t see each other often, but regularly talk on the phone.
Before we get into this one, a quick family tree is essential: Tish Cyrus and Billy Ray Cyrus married in 1993 and raised five children together: Brandi, Trace, Miley, Braison, and Noah. When Tish and Billy Ray divorced in 2022, it was widely speculated that the breakup caused a divide between the Cyrus siblings: with Braison and Noah supporting their dad, and Brandi, Trace, and Miley staying in their mom’s corner.
The feud rumors became a public talking point in August 2023, when Tish married Prison Break star Dominic Purcell. Fans noticed that only Miley, Trace, and Brandi attended the nuptials, while Noah and Braison seemed to be shading the wedding on social media. By February 2024, the rift became hard to ignore as Miley made a point of not thanking her dad in her Grammy acceptance speeches.
As time went on, more and more reports came out about the cause of the divide between the Cyrus siblings, with one insider claiming that it all stemmed from Noah’s alleged past relationship with Dominic. None of this has ever been confirmed, but, in June 2025, after literal years of speculation, Miley gave an update on the “hard” family feud, describing her parents’ divorce as a “mess.” “Half of us weren’t speaking to each other at one point, and we cleaned all that up,” she said during an interview with Monica Lewinsky. “I had a lot of loyalty to my mom…To get each other in a room to even get to counseling would have been a war.”
After all that, it sounds like Miley is back on good terms with her dad and siblings. But it seems the same can’t be said for her older brother, Trace, who has continued to publicly criticize Billy Ray, saying on Instagram in June 2025: “I’m past the point of even caring if I ever speak to him again.”
Over the past few years, Britney has spoken more openly than ever about her family and the roles they played in her 13-year-long conservatorship, which ended in 2021. Though it was her dad, Jamie, who was in charge of her personal and financial affairs during that time, Britney has also criticized her mom, Lynn, and sister, Jamie Lynn, for their apparent abandonment of her while she was under her father’s control, once even claiming that her mom was to blame for the conservatorship in the first place. (Both Lynn and Jamie Lynn have publicly maintained that they tried to “help” and “support” Britney.)
As for the sibling feud specifically, Britney and Jamie Lynn’s relationship reached rock bottom in 2022 when Britney called out her sister for allegedly making false claims about her in her book, writing on Instagram: “I wish you would take a lie detector test so all these masses of people see you’re lying through your teeth about me.” At the time, Jamie Lynn denied this. Then, in Britney’s 2023 memoir, The Woman In Me, the pop icon called Jamie Lynn a “total bitch,” claiming that she once told her to “stop fighting” the conservatorship.
While a reconciliation seems like an unlikely possibility for Britney and her father, it seems like she’d perhaps be open to rebuilding some kind of relationship with her mom and sister one day. In her book, Britney talked about “working to feel more compassion than anger” towards the people who have “wronged” her, so who knows what the future holds.
6.
ALEC AND IRELAND BALDWIN
In 2007, amid Alec Baldwin’s messy divorce from Kim Basinger, a voicemail he left for their daughter, Ireland, was leaked to the media. In the message, Alec can be heard calling the then-11-year-old girl a “rude, thoughtless little pig” after she didn’t answer the phone.
Alec apologized for the voicemail, publicly and privately, but said in 2017 that it caused a “permanent break” in his relationship with Ireland. “It’s thrown in your face every day. There are people who admonish me, or attack me, and use that as a constant spearhead to do that,” he said, comparing it to a “scab that never heals because it’s been picked at all the time by so many people. My daughter — that’s hurt her in a permanent way.”
Luckily, as time has passed, it seems the father-daughter relationship has healed, and they’ve both been able to see the funny side of things. In 2019, Ireland joked about the voicemail during an appearance at Alec’s Comedy Central Roast, and more recently, the 30 Rock star told the New York Times that Ireland gifted him a pig-shaped grill for Father’s Day.
7.
THE GALLAGHER BROTHERS
When it comes to sibling feuds, does it really get more infamous than Liam and Noel Gallagher? Unlike some of these other family dramas, the tension between the Oasis frontmen is hard to pin down to a single event and is more a case of their apparent incompatibility as people. From the very early days of Oasis, it was no secret that the brothers would have bitter arguments that often ended with one of them threatening to leave the band. But it wasn’t until 2009 that things truly imploded.
By this point in the band’s timeline, Liam and Noel were traveling to Oasis shows separately, with Noel describing their relationship as “excruciating.” Among other things about his brother’s behavior, Noel was frustrated by how Liam was using their world tour to promote his clothing brand, and before they were due to hit the stage at that fateful Paris concert, Liam allegedly started welding a guitar at Noel “like an axe.” The apparent physical altercation was the final straw, and Noel announced that he was leaving the band, writing online: “I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.”
For the next 15 years, the brothers would get into repeated public spats and insult each other via social media posts — until 2024 rolled around and the Oasis reunion was finally announced. So, maybe there’s hope for us all.
8.
PRINCE HARRY AND THE ROYAL FAMILY
Prince Harry’s relationship with the rest of the British Royal Family may well be one of the most high-profile family dramas of all time, so let’s just highlight some of the key points. For starters, Harry’s relationship with his dad, King Charles III, and brother, Prince William, had long been a talking point in the UK media, but when Harry got engaged to Meghan Markle in 2017, the scrutiny only ramped up.
Harry and Meghan tied the knot in 2018 and welcomed their first child together, Archie, in 2019. That same year, Harry also sued tabloid publishers for alleged illegal reporting practices and invasion of his privacy. (In December 2023, he won 15 claims in his case against the Mirror Group Newspapers, but his legal battle with Associated Newspapers Limited is still ongoing.) By the start of 2020, Harry and Meghan had announced their plans to step back as senior working royals and become financially independent, but it wasn’t until the following year that we heard their full side of the story.
In March 2021, Harry and Meghan sat down for a high-profile interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which they made claims about mental health struggles, safety, and alleged racist concerns within the Royal Family regarding their son’s skin tone. (Prince William has denied that the Royal Family is “racist.”) In the following year or so, Princes Harry and William would reunite at the separate funerals of Prince Phillip and Queen Elizabeth II. However, as we’d later find out in Harry’s memoir, tensions between the brothers were still high.
Harry’s book, Spare, came out in January 2023, and among the revelations was an anecdote about an alleged physical altercation between Harry and William in 2019. Harry’s legal battles have continued to play out publicly over the past few years, bringing us to 2026, where we have reports that King Charles is open to a reconciliation, while William is “strongly opposed.”
9.
MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY AND HIS MOM
On a number of occasions, Matthew McConaughey has talked about the “sad time” in his life when he had to limit contact with his mom, Kathleen “Kay” McConaughey, after he discovered that she was leaking stories about his life to the press. “I was calling my mom at that time, after I’d gotten famous, needing to talk to my mom,” the Oscar winner said during an appearance on The Howard Stern Show in 2020. “And my mom was not the only one on the phone. The woman that was on the phone was a fan — of my fame.”
Discussing their “hiatus” from one another in a joint interview in 2025, Matthew said his mom “couldn’t help herself” but leak stories about his life, saying: “We had about an eight-year period where I had to have short conversations with her on our Sunday phone calls because she was sharing a lot of that information. I’d tell her something on Sunday between son and mom, and Tuesday I’d read about it in the news or see it in the local paper.”
In the same interview, Kay recalled a time that she even let cameras into their home for a tour, showing them “where Matthew slept.” “Someone called him and said, ‘Are you watching what your mama’s doing?’ But I was so proud that I was just telling the world,” she said, before Matthew revealed how he eventually reached a turning point. “About eight years after that, I got stable enough with my own position and fame that I was like, ‘You know what? My mom can say whatever the hell she wants.’ It’s much more fun now…I’d say we’re closer now.”
10.
FRANCES BEAN COBAIN AND COURTNEY LOVE
Frances Bean Cobain, the only daughter of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, hasn’t always had an easy relationship with her mom. Following instances of drug misuse, Courtney lost custody of Frances numerous times in the first decade of her life, during which time she was taken care of by her grandmother, Wendy O’Connor, Kurt’s mom.
During an interview with i-D magazine in 2006, Frances described complicated feelings about her mother’s chaotic lifestyle growing up, saying: “Sometimes I do think I wish our lives weren’t so hustle and bustle and tabloid and all that stuff wasn’t going on. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so much at home alone and that it wasn’t about nannies and chauffeurs and all that stuff.”
Three years later, in 2009, Frances’s grandmother and aunt, Kimberly Dawn Cobain, were granted custody of the then-17-year-old girl. Around this time, Courtney expressed frustrations about her late husband’s relatives, reportedly writing on Facebook: “Welcome to the hidden, secret, ugly, white-trash, money-grubbing side of the family. Please don’t judge the Bean by it. She’s a great person, they’re just gross.”
It’s unclear exactly how close the mother and daughter are today, as Frances has continued to express mixed feelings about Courtney. “When my mom is on a right and healthy path, she is one of the most fulfilling, beautiful, intelligent, and kind people I ever met,” she said in a 2019 appearance on RuPaul’s What’s the Tee? podcast. “I want our relationship to be based on open communication and love and truth and awareness on how our actions affect the other person.” In September 2024, Frances and her husband, Riley Hawk — the son of skateboarding legend Tony Hawk — welcomed their first child together.
11.
ARIEL WINTER AND HER MOM
When she was a teen in 2012, Ariel accused her mother, Crystal Workman, of emotional and physical abuse. Crystal, who was accused of sexualizing her daughter, as well as hitting, pushing, and slapping her, denied the allegations. However, Ariel’s older sister, Shanelle Gray, was still able to obtain legal guardianship of the Modern Family actor when she was 14, until Ariel became an emancipated minor three years later.
In 2017, she opened up about aspects of the alleged abuse in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, saying that her diet was “very, very restricted” from the very start of her child-acting career, and that her education was severely neglected. Of the sexualization claims, Ariel said: “[My mother would dress me in] the smallest miniskirts, sailor suits, low-cut things, the shortest dresses you’ve ever seen. People thought I was 24 when I was 12. If there was going to be a nude scene when I was that age, my mother would have a thousand percent said yes.”
The week after this interview was published, Crystal attempted to publicly reconcile with her daughter, but for Ariel, that was never an option — and still isn’t. In an interview with People in 2025, Ariel opened up about the happiness she’s found since finding independence and stepping away from Hollywood. “It’s a really deep, painful, sore, sore part for me that’s so much deeper and bigger than I’ve ever felt ready to talk about,” she said of her childhood. “I didn’t leave the industry, I just left the city of LA. It holds some not-great memories for me, and I’m young and never lived anywhere else and thought, ‘Why not?’”
12.
JENNETTE MCCURDY AND HER MOM
In 2022, Jennette memorably released a memoir titled, I’m Glad My Mom Died. In the book, Jennette opened up about the alleged abuse she experienced at the hands of her mother, Debra McCurdy, who died from cancer in 2013. One of the biggest aspects of the mother-daughter relationship was Debra’s apparent desire for control, from pushing her kids into acting to controlling Jennette’s calorie consumption from a young age. Disturbingly, Jennette also claimed that her mom would insist on performing vaginal and breast exams on her throughout childhood, and didn’t let her shower alone until she was 17.
“She says she wants to make sure I don’t have any mysterious lumps or bumps because those could be cancer. I say okay because I definitely don’t want cancer, and since Mom’s had it and all, she would know if I do,” the former iCarly child-star wrote. “I usually just try and think of Disneyland when Mom’s doing the exams…By the time the exams are done, a huge wave of relief washes over my whole body, and I usually realize that’s the first time I’ve felt my body since the exam started.”
In light of their complex relationship, it took Jennette a while to come to terms with her mom’s death, which is one of the reasons she went on to quit acting. “With her death kind of died a lot of her ideas for my life,” Jennette said in 2021, “and that was its own journey, and a difficult one for sure.” In 2025, it was announced that Jennette is working with Apple TV to adapt I’m Glad My Mom Died into a 10-episode series, in which Jennifer Aniston will play Debra.
So, these family dramas are messy, but let me know your thoughts on all of this in the comments.
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