It’s pretty common for parents to keep some family secrets until their kids are older. They can range from mild (like grandma’s famous pie recipe) to momentous (like a hidden half-sibling). But imagine if your parents told you that they were actually some of the most well-known performers in the world!
Here are 27 celebs who hid their fame from their kids:
1.
Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song share two young children, Dakota and Carson. In 2025, Mac told Hot Ones, “My kids have no idea that me and Brenda are famous. They see mama on TV. When she’s not around, I put on Suite Life…and you know what Dak said? He goes, ‘Someday I want to grow up and marry a girl just as pretty as London Tipton.’ …But they are thoroughly unimpressed that we’re on TV and stuff like that. I’m not intending to raise a nepo baby.”
He continued, “It’s like I’ve been famous, like, virtually my entire life. I take my kids to school and the other kids go, ‘That’s Dak and Carson’s dad.’ And I’m dad-famous there, and I want to keep that up, even if it’s just temporary, even it’s just an illusion. I’ve never felt more famous, like more complete famous, than that. I try to, at the very least, keep up the illusion.”
2.
Zach Galifianakis has two sons. His younger son is named Rufus, but his older son’s name has never been shared publicly. In 2021, Zach told Entertainment Tonight, “My kids think I’m a librarian somewhere. They don’t even know. They think I’m an assistant librarian somewhere… You wanna protect their innocence as much as possible. They’re just children. People used to come up to me and be like, ‘Oh, my kids love The Hangover,’ and I’m like, ‘You’re a terrible parent.’ They need to mature a little bit before they see that.”
3.
Lin-Manuel Miranda has two young sons, Sebastian and Francisco. In 2019, he told Us Weekly, “They know I show up on TV sometimes, but they also have no idea [why]. They know that Daddy makes things up, and I think they’re very proud of that. That makes me very proud.”
4.
In 2021, Kate Winslet told the Times that, when her three children — Mia Threapleton, Joe Anders, and Bear Winslet — were young, she protected them from her fame as much as possible. For example, if she was on a magazine cover, she’d take them to school via a different route that avoided newsstands. Likewise, when they played at their friends’ houses, she’d politely tell the parents that they didn’t talk about her work.
And it was effective! When Joe was 17, he was shocked that 400 people watched her virtual Q&A. He responded, “That’s loads! Brilliant, Mum. Well done!” Similarly, Mia only discovered her mom’s role in Jude from someone else who worked on the movie. Kate said, “I’ve just never rammed it down their throats. I just don’t go on about it. I go to work. It’s hard and difficult, and when I come home, I don’t want it to be hard and difficult anymore. I want to snuggle up, read them James and the Giant Peach, and have some toast.”
In 2025, Mia, who’s also an actor, told Elle, “I really could count on one hand — both hands possibly — the amount of times that I went to set as a kid. My mother really strived to keep that world separate from our home life. That’s something that she really wanted. She would say, ‘All of their experiences will be theirs and theirs alone’ —which is exactly what has happened.”
5.
Emily Blunt and John Krasinski have two young daughters, Violet and Hazel. In 2021, Emily told the Times, “I really understand that, what Kate [Winslet] did. I really get it… It’s a strange thing to navigate, you know. Because Hazel came home the other day, and we were in the kitchen, and she goes, ‘Are you famous?’ And I’d never heard her … we’ve never said that word in our house. We don’t talk about it… Someone at school had clearly said it. I was like, ‘Um…not really, I don’t think I am. Did someone say that to you, Haze?’ She said, ‘Yeah,’ but then she wouldn’t divulge much more, you know, but it’s weird. It’s weird.”
She continued, “I don’t want my kids to feel any more important or special or that there’s a glare on them any more than other kids. If they can remain oblivious for the longest time, I’d be thrilled. They don’t even want to see what I do. They don’t even like it when I put on makeup. They don’t like any of it! They just want me to be their mummy.”
Then, in 2022, John told Late Night with Stephen Colbert, “They literally just started watching The Office. By the way, ‘started watching,’ I showed them one episode. Their actual quote — we were driving, and from the backseat, I heard, ‘So what’s the deal with this Office thing?’ And I was like, ‘It’s a big question. We’ll cut it down into bite-sized morsels.’ So, Emily was like, ‘Just show them the pilot.’ And so, they were watching the first episode, and my oldest, turns out she’s a screen-talker-atter. So, she’s talking to the screen. And so, when Steve fired Jenna, she goes, ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ And then she goes, ‘You’re a horrible person!’ And I said, ‘You should meet Steve Carell.'”
He continued, “And then, my six-year-old kept asking, ‘Is that you?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, it is.’ She goes, ‘You look very different.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll try not to take that as a hurtful thing, but sure.’ And she goes, ‘You look very different.’ And I said, ‘No, that’s me. I’m just playing a character.’ And she went, ‘That’s not you’ and then watched two more episodes being like, ‘That’s not you. Guy looks a lot like you, though.'”
John added that Emily had a “head start” on being “cool” in their kids’ eyes because she was in Mary Poppins Returns. He said, “And I think that my kids thought that she had married me out of, like, charity. They were like, ‘You’re so nice to marry an accountant. That’s so nice of you.’ ‘Cause they don’t know what I do… I think [they think I work in an office]. The reason why I think that is, I was walking them to school one day, and this guy came up. He was very nice. And he came up, and he went, ‘John! from The Office!’ And I went, ‘Yeah.’ And he went, ‘Oh my God, it’s so good to see you!’ And I said, ‘Thanks!’ He kept walking, and she said, ‘So do you work with him?’ And I went, ‘No.’ And she goes, ‘Why are you lying to me?’ And I went, ‘I’m not lying to you.’ And she goes, ‘No, he just said he knows you from the office.'”
6.
Khloé Kardashian’s young children, True and Tatum, don’t know she’s a reality star. In 2025, she told the On Purpose Podcast, “We went to a restaurant the other night, and the waitress kept calling me by my name. She was like, ‘Khloé, do you want another drink?’ Whatever. And True was going, ‘How does she know who you are?’ And I go, ‘Oh, I just come here all the time.’ Which I don’t, but they don’t realize that we’re on TV. Like, they don’t know the difference, ’cause I’m not talking about it. I think that’s so funny to me that she’s like, ‘How does somebody know your name?’ Or she’ll say, ‘Why do they want a picture with you?’ I go, ‘Maybe she likes my hair.’ I always try to say, like, something and brush it off. I don’t know. I don’t wanna make a big deal out of it.”
She continued, “You know, for my kids, True, she has an iPad that they can watch shows or whatever when doing her hair, but I have limited iPad time. And I tell her she can’t have a phone until she’s 12, and who knows if I’ll keep that. I don’t think kids need it other than that. I think they have these amazing phones that are just for calling…there’s no internet access. And so I’m like, ‘Yes, you could have one of these phones, which is to call me. But otherwise, I don’t want you looking at these things.’ She’s not on Instagram or TikTok or that kind of stuff. I don’t think that’s necessary at this age. I think it’s really damaging.”
7.
When Kim Kardashian’s oldest three — North, Psalm, and Chicago — were all still very little, they didn’t know she was such a big celebrity. In 2018, Kim told This Morning, “It’s pretty intense, but at home I’m not known. My kids have no clue what’s going on. So I don’t really feel it — I spend most of my time at home.”
8.
Kelly Clarkson’s son and daughter, Remington and River, weren’t very aware of her fame when they were little. In 2019, she told People, “I think they look at me as ‘Mom,’ so they don’t really even [think about it]. [Remington] has no idea. They’re just very normal. We’re not like, in the scene, ever.”
9.
Lincoln Park co-founder Mike Shinoda’s three children were still very young when his band’s seven-year touring hiatus began. In 2024, he told The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, “One of my daughters said, ‘Oh, you know, I signed up to play this song at this school festival type of thing.’ This girl doesn’t know how to play guitar. She took two lessons at that point; this was a couple years ago. I guess it was probably like a week or two later, I’m listening, and I’m hearing her doing her thing, and she’s got most of it. Like, she’s getting really pretty far, but there’s a couple things she’s not doing correctly — like, one of the chords is wrong, for example. I was like, ‘How’s everything going?'”
Mike tried to help his daughter get the chord right, but her response was, “Yeah, whatever.” However, the next day, she changed her tune. He continued, “She came to me and was like, ‘Hey, Dad, um, can you show me that chord?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, cool. No problem.’ I just thought, ‘Oh, she came around.'” But his wife, Anna, said, “That’s not what happened.
Anna told him, “I heard you two talking originally, and [their daughter] was like, ‘Get out of here, ‘ basically. Like, ‘don’t tell me how to play.’ … After you left, I went in the room, and I was like, ‘Hey, like, you should listen to your dad.'” Mike said, “And my daughter goes, ‘What does HE know about performing?’ My wife literally pulled up a video of Linkin Park, onstage at, like, Rock in Rio in front of 85,000 people. And she shows it to her, and my daughter goes, ‘Who’s that?'”
10.
Ricky Martin kept his fame hidden from his oldest two, twins Matteo and Valentino, until he felt they were old enough to understand. In 2016, he told People, “They’re always with me and always traveling and on the road with me, but I always kept them backstage. Their perception of my job was to see me from the side singing, but they didn’t know to what. One day, when I thought that they were big enough, I said, ‘Go to the front of the house,’ and they see the lights and the whole spectacle. When the show was over, they came to me and said, ‘Papi, you’re Ricky Martin.’ I said ‘I’m not Ricky Martin, I’m your father.’ They said, ‘No, no, no, you’re Ricky Martin,’ and so it changed.”
11.
Luke Combs’ two sons, Beau and Tex, are still toddlers. In 2024, Luke told This Past Weekend with Theo Vonn, “I almost worry about them, like, finding out what I do in some ways… I think about it a lot, you know… It’s gonna sound weird. It’s like, you almost wish they could just not know in some ways, and not because I don’t want them to know. That’s not what I’m getting at. It’s like, I almost want them to just be, like, naive to the whole thing for as long as is humanly possible. Like, I want them to be, the only thing they’re worried about is riding bikes and playing trucks and, you know, riding around on the Polaris with Mom and Dad.”
“But there gets to a point, like, you know, as soon as school is looming, you know. I’ve got some other artist buddies that have kids, and they’re like, ‘Well, you gotta tell them, or somebody else is gonna tell them,'” he said.
12.
Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel try to keep life as normal as possible for their two sons, Silas and Phineas. In 2021, Jusin told the Armchair Expert podcast, “I try to be conscious of making sure we can live a life where we’re not weirdly private, but we’re conscious of making sure they can be kids for as long as possible. And not have the weight of somebody else treating them differently because of something that their parents do.”
Addressing podcast host Dax Shepard’s similar concerns about his own children, Justin added, “We have this same thing where, like, the kids at school with my 5-year-old are like, ‘Your dad is Branch [from Trolls].’ For guys like us, you know, the hope is that we just keep instilling in them that we got really fun jobs, but it’s not who we are. Hopefully, down the road, then that has more weight to it, I guess.”
13.
Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell’s two young daughters, Delta and Lincoln, didn’t realize their parents were famous. Appearing on Late Night with Stephen Colbert in 2019, Dax said, “They know that Mom is Princess Anna from Frozen. They know that. They understand it… They’ve been to set. They’ve seen us work. They have seen billboards around town, and people have taken photos of us when we’re out and about. But, I was talking with my daughter. She said, ‘Why do people listen to the podcast? Do they listen for you or Monica?’ My co-host. And I said, ‘Well, I bet it’s fifty-fifty.’ And she said, ‘Okay, but that’s why they started listening?’ And I go, ‘Well, I think initially they started listening ’cause they knew me and not Monica.'”
“‘Well, why did they know you?’ I go, ‘Well, ’cause I’m famous.’ And she goes, ‘You’re famous?’ And I go, ‘Yeah, hun, like, you know, I’m on TV, and that’s why people take pictures of us.’ She’s like, ‘Does Mom know?’ And I go, ‘Honey, Mom’s more famous than Dad.’ And she goes, ‘Mom’s famous too?’ And I was like, ‘What is happening right now?’ She understands how we’re making a living, but this word ‘famous’ was its own thing that, like, at kindergarten, I guess, we were all of a sudden Taylor Swift or something. Or Pink. I don’t know. Very weird though, right?” he said.
14.
Pamela Anderson’s sons, Brandon and Dylan, saw people visiting her on the Baywatch set “all the time,” but they “didn’t get it cause they were so young.” However, they understood that their dad, Tommy Lee, was a big name. In 2015, Pamela told People, ‘They would say, ‘My dad’s a rockstar, and my mommy rescues animals.’ That’s all they knew.”
But when the boys enrolled in surf camp, they were surprised to find out how famous she was. She said that, after their first day, “They came up to me, and they said, ‘Mom, are you Pamela Anderson?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ They were like, ‘What is that?’ And ‘Why are people saying these things? Are you Pamela Anderson for real? Like, what is going on?’ ‘Well, yeah.'”
15.
When Hilary Duff’s son Luca, her oldest child, was five, he started to figure out she was a celebrity. In 2017, Hilary told Late Night with Seth Meyers, “He’s starting to figure out more and more. He’s very funny. He’s seen me on the cover of magazines in the grocery store. I really think he just thinks the next day Shane’s mommy is going to be on the cover of a magazine… I think some little rascal at school told him what my name is. Luca didn’t know my name, and then he said to me, ‘I know your name.’ And I said, ‘I know.’ And he said, ‘I know your name.’ And I was like, ‘Okay.’ And he was like, ‘Hilary Duff.'”
16.
Jersey Shore star Snooki convinced her oldest two — Lorenzo and Giovanna — that she’s famous for a different reason. In 2021, she told Us Weekly, “Both [of my eldest two] kids think I’m an actress. I tell them that it’s not real. I’m just acting, like, I’m playing a role, that’s what they think. … I don’t think they’re ready for that yet. So as of right now, I am an actress.”
She said she planned to tell them, along with their baby brother Angelo, the truth when they turn 16 or 17. She said, “They’ll kind of get it [then]. Like, ‘Listen, Mommy had some crazy years before she was a mommy. She let loose. So whatever you see on TV back then, just do the opposite of what I did.'”
17.
As a kid, Kaia Gerber didn’t really understand how famous her mom, Cindy Crawford, was because she “would separate her busy home life and work life the best that she could.” In 2017, Kaia told Teen Vogue, “I think it was only on my eighth birthday, at Disneyland, that I started to understand what was going on. I wanted to take pictures with the princesses, and everyone wanted to take pictures with her!”
18.
When Jessica Alba’s daughters, Honor and Haven, were younger, they didn’t know she acted. In 2014, Jessica told E! News, “[Honor is] still trying to understand what I do because it’s not like I [tell her]. She goes to my office at The Honest Company and is like, ‘That’s mommy’s work.'”
19.
Jodie Foster didn’t tell her sons, Kit and Charlie, that she was an actor when they were kids. In 2024, she told The View, “I don’t know why, I guess I just didn’t want them to know me that way. I wanted them to know me as their mom and the person who went away to work and stuff. I just didn’t want them to be confused about what I did for a living.”
She added, “I brought my oldest son, he was probably about 3 — well, he was 3, because I was pregnant with the other one — I brought him to set one day, and I bought him a little plastic tool belt and stuff. And I was like, ‘Yeah, and this is this set and this set and this set.’ And for a really long time, he thought I was a construction worker. He thought I did construction.”
20.
When Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling’s daughters, Esmeralda and Amanda, were a bit younger, they didn’t understand that their parents were actors. For example, while watching her dad film a fight scene with Harrison Ford in Blade Runner 2049, Esmeralda shouted, “You’re winning!” And when Ryan shot First Man, both girls told people he worked on the moon. In 2022, he told GQ, “I think they finally figured it out… that my name is actually The Gray Man, and I’m an assassin for the CIA.”
However, the kids had a favorite movie from their parents’ filmography — Eva’s 1999 flick about a kid who turns into a pig. Ryan said, “My Brother the Pig was a big hit. I highly recommend it, by the way. Eva’s amazing in it.”
21.
Alexa Ray Joel has two iconic parents — Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley. In 2010, Alexa told New York Magazine, “I got the double whammy. It’s tough to live in that shadow … I’ve been pushing and pulling, and I’m still fighting my way out of it. My parents tried to shield me from how famous they were when I was growing up on Long Island. I had no idea. When everybody said, ‘Hello, Billy! Hello, Christie!’ — I just thought they were popular.”
22.
Neve Campbell’s older son, Caspian, found out she was famous at school when he was in second grade. In 2020, Neve told People, “I didn’t tell him for a very, very long time until one of the parents at his school told him. He came home from school and said to me, ‘Mommy, are you Neve Campbell?’ It was a very strange conversation. I’m like, ‘Okay, let’s talk.’ I didn’t really want it to influence him in any way.”
23.
Cate Blanchett’s four kids — Dashiell, Roman, Ignatius, and Edith — “have no idea, no idea” she’s such a star. They’re also “disinterested” in her fame “in the best possible, healthiest way.” In 2022, she told Page Six, “I told them, ‘Oh, I’m going to New York for 36 hours. I’ll be back on Wednesday…’ One of them is getting an award at school, and they went, ‘Oh, OK, have a good time.'”
24.
Nick and Vanessa Lachey’s three young children — Camden, Phoenix, and Brooklyn — “started to” realize their parents were famous when Camden started school. In 2021, Vanessa told Drew & Jonathan, “On the first day of school, Camden came home and asked, ‘Mommy, where were you today?’ I said, ‘I was at home, baby.’ And he said, ‘Well, my friend said she saw you on Top Chef Junior.’ And I said, ‘Oh, that’s a show.’ And he said, ‘Is that on television?’ Fast-forward, and Daddy won The Masked Singer, and the kids in his class were amazed.”
Nick added, “At the end of the day, we always come back to, ‘We’re just Mom and Dad, end of story.’ What we do for a living may be different. But we’re no different from anyone else.”
25.
Part of the reason Lily Allen agreed to perform with Olivia Rodrigo at Glastonbury in 2024, was to impress her preteen daughters, Marnie and Ethel. On The Jonathan Ross Show, Lily said, “I was kind of, like, slightly expecting her to introduce me, and people be like, ‘What? Who?’ But it wasn’t like that. It was really, really amazing. People went absolutely ballistic, and so I was really, really overwhelmed. But my kids were just like, ‘What is going on?’ Because they, you know, Olivia Rodrigo is, like, their idol, and they couldn’t really get their heads around the fact that people were kind of screaming even louder for me than they were for her at some points… They were very, very confused. Then we kind of got off stage, and they didn’t really wanna talk to me. They were a bit sort of, like, overwhelmed by the whole thing.”
She continued, “And we got in the car on the way back, and Marnie looked at me, and she went, ‘So, were you kind of popular then?’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’ She was like, ‘Well, like, in the charts.’ I was like, ‘Yes!'”
26.
Natalie Portman has a son named Aleph and a daughter named Amalia. In 2018, when the kids were around 7 and 1, she told Fatherly, “I haven’t shown my kids the [Star Wars] movies yet — I think it’s so weird for them to think of me as anything other than their mom. They’ve seen the recent Star Wars movies that I am not in — my son has, my daughter is too young. It feels really lucky to be part of something that’s every child’s imaginary world. It’s very exciting to be able to impress my kids a little bit.”
27.
And finally, Tom Hanks’s four adult children obviously know what an icon he is, but not his grandkids! His oldest son, Colin, has two daughters, Olivia and Charlotte, who “don’t care about him at all.” In 2019, Colin told Us Weekly, “[Their playdates are] like every other playdate with a grandparent. The grandparent gives them stuff they shouldn’t be having, and the grandparents don’t listen to what the parents are saying they should be doing.”
Colin also said that, even though he tells them “every day,” his kids don’t know how “cool” he is. He added, “Children are great humblers. They don’t care what you do [or] … what you have done. They just want to do their kid stuff.”
Do you love all things TV and movies? Subscribe to the Screen Time newsletter to get your weekly dose of what to watch next and what everyone is flailing over from someone who watches everything!
Related
Discover more from InstiWitty Media Studios
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
