The divorce between parents and children is a legal non-existent concept, yet family breakups are as old as the world. Vivian Wilson, the 22-year-old transgender daughter of Elon Musk, has renounced the surname of her famously renowned progenitor. The young woman’s rejection of her family name is a visible and powerful symbol of her clear desire to distance herself from her controversial father.
Only one of Musk’s fourteen children has dropped his surname. Brad Pitt leads the way in this regard: five of his six offspring with Angelina Jolie no longer go by Pitt. The actress, for her part, likewise does not bear the Voight of her own father, Jon, who today, nearly in his nineties, holds a flashy post in the Trump administration: ambassador in Hollywood. From the start of her career, Angelina operated with her second name turned into a surname. His is one of the most notable rifts in pop culture. She rebelled against an absent and unfaithful father with whom, moreover, she clashed politically.
The children of the multicultural family Jolie built, first on her own and then with Brad Pitt, some biological and others not, have ended up following in her footsteps and distancing themselves from their ex, both nominally and emotionally. Ordinary people do not star in films, nor in multi-million-dollar divorces, nor in private-jet incidents like the one that led Angelina to file for separation, but if there is one thing modern celebrity culture has taught us, it is that their stories are the new myths that narrate our reality. Because parents separated from their children exist in every home.
The daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, another offspring of hyper-celebrity, has taken the same decision as Vivian Wilson or Jolie’s brood. She is now Suri Noelle. She has changed the surname of her super-celebrated father for her mother’s middle name. Famous since before her birth in 2006, Suri is the offspring of one of the era’s most popular and strange couples. That TomKat, like Brangelina, spectacularized their good times so much that when the bad times arrived, the show was on.
Tom Cruise. Suri, the actor’s youngest daughter, has decided to change her surname to Noelle forever.
In Cruise and Holmes’ case, the powerful Church of Scientology (of which he is a member and leader) contributed to making everything darker. That obscurantism seriously damaged Holmes’s career, but it also allowed her to shield her daughter from media intrusion. Today Suri, now in her twenties, returns to the news, again repudiating her father.
For now, none of Jolie and Pitt’s offspring have acted as a showpiece of a lineage that would undoubtedly offer them opportunities that others are barred from. We also don’t know if Suri Noelle plans to become an actress. Nevertheless, the legends surrounding the Mission: Impossible star say that he himself could close Hollywood’s doors to his daughter.
With the two eldest, Isabella Jane and Anthony Connor, adopted during his marriage to Nicole Kidman, Tom is theoretically on good terms. In this case, the Australian actress barely mentions them. By contrast, she does mention her two younger daughters, born from his subsequent marriage (also dissolved) to the singer Keith Urban.
It’s hard to recognize oneself in this mythology of superstars, I know. Perhaps we connect better with two stars whose surname is very Spanish: Iglesias. Much has been written about the relationship between Julio and Enrique, about the supposed musical ambitions of the son and the lack of charm that he felt toward his father. The reality is that today they are almost antithetical figures. Julio, older and retired (and back in the headlines not exactly for his musical successes), remains the epitome of the indomitable Latin lover. By his side, the reserved Enrique almost seems like a cloistered monk, the ideal husband, the perfect father. When the former was the age his son is now (51), he was one of the world’s brightest playboy stars.
Julio Iglesias, a national rivalry with his son Enrique that has, until today, made it impossible to bring two music legends together on stage.
Professionally, they have never crossed paths. Not a single duet, not a performance, not a spontaneous musical moment in the few occasions they have coincided. Something so uneconomical (consider the revenue a joint Iglesias album would have generated at the time) cannot be read as anything other than a real distancing. Jane Fonda pushed for the production of On Golden Pond so that her father, the legendary Henry Fonda, could shine. And he did: he won the Oscar, the only one of his career. The film also served to strengthen the Fondas’ bond. That will not be the case with the Iglesias.
Macaulay Culkin. The boy who captivated the world with Home Alone endured an upbringing of abuse at the hands of his father.
The singer Britney Spears endured a humiliating ordeal in the form of paternal legal guardianship that she could not break until almost forty. Culkin has spent decades without speaking to Kit, and Britney wants nothing to do with James Parnell Spears, the man who controlled her since she was a child and exercised absolute control over her finances, her personal life, and medical decisions for 13 long years.
Britney Spears. The #FreeBritney movement promoted by her fans freed her from the family guardianship.
And what to say about Michael Jackson and the formidable Joe Jackson, who subjected his children to tyranny, turning them into a music-and-money-making machine. Yet Michael’s talent was so extraordinary that the iron hand with which he tried to steer his career was, besides cruel, useless. Michael, already a planetary idol, did not repudiate his father. Nor did he need to: his success did the unmasking, and Joe would go down in pop history more as a monstrous and mediocre father than as a visionary.
Michael Jackson. Up to the end, he remained respectful toward his controversial father Joe, from whom he managed to dissociate himself professionally.
Jennifer Aniston also did not cruelly attack her mother after she published a book recounting details of the actress’s childhood. From Mother and Daughter to Friends: a memoir (Prometheus Books, 1999) was not scandalous, but it was sufficiently indiscreet to be considered a betrayal. At that moment she was at the peak thanks to her role as Rachel in the most popular television series and her relationship with Brad Pitt. But even though the book did not please her, Jennifer did not treat her mother as a villain either. “She did her best with what she had,” said the Friends star about her very imperfect mother, who wasn’t even invited to her wedding with Pitt. Spontaneously or perhaps very conscious of her “approachable” diva image, Aniston cared that the family story be a parable, if not of reconciliation, then of forgiveness.
Mother Aniston died in 2016. Many of the fathers in this article are still alive. In theory, they could rebuild the relationship with their offspring. If they want to, of course. Because perhaps separated, more precisely divorced, they are all better off. Nicole Kidman has already made that clear about her children: “They are adults. They are capable of making their own decisions.” Divorcing your parents is, certainly, an adult decision. And a taboo.
