Bobby Brown has been a major player in the world of R&B since the early '80s. However, his parenting skills are not quite as iconic as his music career.
Brown has done time for missed child support payments numerous times in his life--and that doesn't even include his arrests for other crimes. In 2007, he owed his ex over $20,000 and could only pay for it thanks to a string of appearances on a Washington D.C. radio show.
Gabriel Aubry is a French model who was married to and had a child with American actress Halle Berry. In a strange twist of events, when the couple divorced, it was Berry who was forced to pay $16,000 a month to Aubry.
So why is this guy a bad father? Because instead of using that money to the benefit of their child, Aubry lived off Berry's child support payments himself.
Michael Lohan's one and only claim to fame is being the father of actress Lindsay Lohan. And while missed child support payments do play into his status as a bad dad, that's not his only offense.
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His troubles with alcohol and drugs let to numerous arrests and prison stints while Lindsay Lohan was still a child, and he was allegedly the driving force behind her career in entertainment--which would lead to substance and legal troubles for the younger Lohan herself.
Former athlete Dennis Rodman has had a wild and interesting life, to say the least. However, it doesn't seem like he was ever wildly interested in paying child support.
Rodman first found himself in legal trouble in 2009, when he was forced to do community service for his missed child support payments. By 2012, he owed his ex-wife and their children more than $500,000 in unpaid support.
Actor Val Kilmer was once married to actress Joanne Whalley, and they ended up having two children together. Unfortunately, the couple divorced in 1996.
When they split, Kilmer agreed to pay $27,500 a month in child support. However, Whalley had liens placed on Kilmer's properties multiple times in the late 2000s because of the unpaid support that he still owed.
Some of the men on this list should thank their lucky stars that they aren't Evander Holyfield. The iconic boxer has twelve children by six women, and, needless to say, those child support payments add up quickly.
In the early 2010s, the boxer allegedly owed almost half a million dollars in unpaid child support. And this was all in addition to his other financial and legal troubles he faced at this time.
Jude Law didn't seem to have any problem supporting the three children he had with actress Sadie Frost. However, he was keeping a secret from all of them.
Despite his initial denials, Law fathered a fourth child with a woman that he had a one-night stand with. While he eventually acknowledged the child after a paternity test, he allegedly only sees her once a year.
Levi Johnston was at one time engaged to Sarah Palin's daughter, Bristol. When he and Bristol learned that they were going to be teen parents, the two quickly got engaged before ending the relationship entirely.
Johnston didn't really seem like a great father thanks to his constant, public feuding with the Palin clan (who didn't look great themselves). But things got real ugly when it was revealed that he owed $67,000 in unpaid child support for his son, Tripp.
You might known Skeet Ulrich as one of the cast in the classic '90s horror movie, Scream, but his twin children know him as the guy who owes them a lot of money.
Ulrich married actress Georgina Cates in 1997 and had two children with her before their divorce in 2005. Almost a decade later, Ulrich was in court for unpaid child support totaling $284,861.84.
Edward Furlong began his acting career young and had roles in famous films like Terminator 2 and American History X. He also had a child with actress Rachael Bella.
During their divorce trial, Bella revealed that their infant son had tested positive for cocaine while in the care of Furlong. Additionally, Bella obtained a protective order from Furlong after their divorce, which Furlong violated.
Alec Baldwin doesn't seem to have had any child support issues like some of the other guys on this list. Rather, it's his big mouth that makes him a less-than-stellar dad.
In 2007, Baldwin had a standing phone call with his then eleven-year-old daughter. When she didn't pick up the phone one time, Baldwin snapped and left a voicemail calling her a "rude, thoughtless little pig."
When rapper 50 Cent's son Marquise was first born, he said that he wanted the two to have the relationship that he never got with his father. By the time Marquise was a teen, though, that story had changed.
50 Cent and his son have been estranged for years now and have even engaged in some nasty, public feuding. Additionally, Marquise had no idea that 50 had another child until the story was reported on by TMZ.
I'm sure that exactly no one is surprised that Charlie Sheen made it onto a list like this. The troubled actor had relationships with several women, but most of his child-related problems stem from his relationship with Denise Richards.
During the divorce proceedings, Richards accused Sheen of substance abuse and threats of violence. Years later, Sheen would lose custody of his children entirely thanks to his high-profile problems.
Unlike the other men on this list, Jon Gosselin had his poor parenting beamed directly into American homes thanks to his reality show, Jon & Kate Plus 8. The show followed he and his wife, Kate, as they raised their eight children.
The couple divorced in 2009, which was announced on the show, and things took a real ugly turn. Gosselin eventually lost custody of the children and has struggled to maintain contact with them since.
Prince Charles ended up looking like a less-than-stellar father after his son, Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle sat down for an interview with Oprah in March of 2021.
It was revealed that, after Prince Harry informed him that they would be stepping away from official royal duties, dear old dad just straight-up stopped taking his calls.
At his peak, kids across the country loved Karl Malone as an iconic NBA great, but his actual kids probably don't feel as warmly about dear old dad as others do. Things didn't start off great for his kids when he fought against $125 a week child support payments in court, and things definitely went off the rails when he told his son at graduation that it was "too late" for a relationship with him.
While Malone might not be the best dad out there, a few of his kids did end up following in his athletic footsteps. His daughter, Cheryl Ford, ended up playing in the WNBA, while his son, Demetress Bell, was an offensive tackle in the NFL.
Terrell Owens made a killing as an NFL wide reciever, but his multi-million dollar salary was apparently not enough to keep up with child support payments. Or so he says.
In 2012, his three (of four) baby mamas went on Dr. Phil to reveal that Owens had either fallen behind on or completely stopped paying child support. And this was on top of a 2011 trial where one of the mothers sued for failure to pay.
Knowing what we know about him, did anyone really expect Flavor Flav to keep his child support payments up to date? The mother of three of his children sure did, which is why she took him to court for failure to pay in 2012.
Flav ended up spending 180 days in jail because he owed more than $100k in missed payments. He was eventually released on the condition that he pay $25,000 upfront and add an extra $1200 per month on his payments.
Alcoholism is a complicated issue, but you know things are really bad if you let it start to interfere with being a father. And that's exactly what happened to David Hasselhoff.
In 2007, a video was released online of Hasselhoff drunkenly stumbling around the house and eating a hamburger. The clip was taken by his daughter, and in the video, she can be heard pleading with her dad to stop.
Kids these days have to deal with parents oversharing information about them online, but things can get really hairy when your dad is one of the biggest names in the rap game. Despite the wishes of his then-wife (fellow rapper Kelis), he announced the birth of their son online and live during a concert .
However, things took a darker turn several years later. In 2018, during a custody battle for their daughter, Kelis revealed that Nas had been physically and emotionally abusive during their marriage.
If you've been nicknamed "Papa Merciless" you should know there's something wrong with your parenting style. And that's exactly what Peter Graf, father to tennis star Steffi Graf, was called.
In addition to exerting extreme control over every aspect of Steffi's life, Peter was also known spar with and verbally abuse tennis officials from the sidelines of his daughter's games. He was also convicted in court of tax evasion for failure to pay on more than $7 million of his daughter's earnings.
The Jackson family has had its fair share of controversies, and in the early days, a lot of those revolved around Joe Jackson, father and manager to the Jackson 5. While his kids may have risen to the top of the music world, behind the scenes, Jackson was known to be incredibly abusive.
While several of his children denied that abuse ever took place, his son, Michael Jackson, went public with his allegations in a 1993 Oprah interview. His accusations included by physical and mental abuse.
In the late '80s and early '90s, Eddie Murphy had five children without much commotion. However, he would divorce the mother of his children in 2005 and begin a relationship with Spice Girl Mel B in 2006. That's where the problems began.
Despite the couple's short relationship, Mel B found herself pregnant, and Eddie Murphy was not quick to assume his role as the father. Even after a paternity test, Murphy allegedly didn't want much to do with his daughter during her early years.
We're not sure what kind of relationsip Joe Simpson was trying to have with his daughter, singer Jessica Simpson, but it sure doesn't sound fatherly. He has quite a history of remarking on her "double d's."
In addition to this, he's clearly not afraid to use his daughter's fame to help enrich himself. Case in point: in 2015 Simpson was caught begging to be let into a swanky party by letting everyone within earshot know that he was Jessica Simpson's dad.
Actor Ryan O'Neal actually admitted to being a bad dad, but he still managed to throw his kids under the bus while doing it. He had this to say: "I'm a hopeless father. I don't know why. I don't think I was supposed to be a father. Just look around at my work—they're either in jail or they should be."
Some of the more serious allegations of bad parenting came from his son, actor Griffin O'Neal. He alleges that his father gave him cocaine at age 11 and forced him to use it.
Michael Douglas has spent some time thinking about his life as a father, and even he admits that he's come up lacking. He was forced into reflecting on his parenting after his son, Cameron, was sentenced to five years in prison on drug charges.
Douglas said, "We always tend to be kinder or make more of an effort to strangers than we do to the person closest to us." He might not be perfect, but that's much more of a realization than we could expect from most of the guys on this list.
Over the years, Hulk Hogan has had a bit of trouble keeping it in his pants. It's even worse that he got his daughter involved--but thankfully not in the way you're thinking!
Hogan's wife divorced him in 2007 after he had a highly publicized affair with another woman. The really mortifying part? The other woman was friends with his daughter, Brooke.
Matthew Knowles is dad to Beyonce, so he must have done something right. Unfortunately, he's done plenty wrong as well.
During her rise to stardom with Destiny's Child and her solo career, Matthew acted as Beyonce's manager. However, that all abruptly came to an end in 2011, after allegations that he was stealing money from her. While she says she still loves her dad, Beyonce made it clear that they were done for good when it comes to business.
Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to keep his love child a secret, but even this powerful man was no match for the truth. In 2011, it was revealed that Schwarzenegger had a son with his housekeeper 14 years earlier.
The revelations prompted his then-wife Maria Shriver to file for divorce. His secret child was born within days of Shriver giving birth to their son in 1997.
While you may not have heard much about Jamie Spears until recently, he has been around Hollywood for decades. Jamie Spears is the father of pop-icon Britney Spears. After Britney’s international success and fame, Jamie became more involved in Britney’s business affairs to ensure his daughter was making the “right” decisions.
Well, after the infamous 2008 meltdown…Britney was placed under an ongoing conservatorship which named Jamie as the guardian of Britney’s finances and wellbeing. That all sounds great on paper, but since then Jamie has exploited his daughter’s fame and money for his own benefit and was accused by Britney in a 2021 court case for guardianship abuse. Talk about a great father…not!
