Becoming a child of an icon has a lot of benefits – having other celebrity icons as playmates, getting to places other people spend their entire laughing trying to reach, gifts during Christmas and birthdays and all the good things money can buy.
But there’s a yin to every yang.
It can be a burden because the minute you are born, your eyes are immediately pointed to a pedestal that people expect you to reach, like it or not.
Here are the stories of some children born from parents who are legends.
10. Lisa Marie Presley
Lisa Marie was put on the spotlight the minute she was born. The media couldn’t get enough of her, photographing her whenever they can and even when they weren’t supposed to. I guess, when your father was once known as the devil for introducing such a revolutionary concept of music, those things can happen.
So Lisa Marie grew up to become a really really beautiful woman, she did what the world sort of knew she would do. She entered the music business. On April 8, 2003, Presley released her debut album, To Whom It May Concern. It reached #5 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and was certified gold in June 2003. Presley wrote all the lyrics and co-wrote some of the melodies. Her second album, Now What debuted number 9 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. It was certified gold in November 2005. Presley co-wrote 10 songs and recorded covers of Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry”
In August 2007, the single In the Ghetto was released. Elvis Presley originally released the single in 1969. In the new version, Lisa “duets” with her father. The single reached #1 on the iTunes sales and #16 on Billboard’s Bubbling Under Hot 100 singles chart.
Yet, people think she’s still a failure.
The truth is, anyone will seem a loser compared to Elvis. The guy changed music, for god’s sake. Lisa Marie is talented and she’s her own person. She’s probably not as good as her father in showmanship but she has proven her worth. It’s time for people to acknowledge that.
9. Raphael De Niro
Robert De Niro is perhaps the greatest active actor now. He has a son who tried acting before settling to a more quiet world of Real Estate. It was a good decision because he is now known as one of the most successful and youngest real estate executives.
8. Zak Starkey
Ringo didn’t want his first born to be a drummer. He wanted Zak to be a doctor or a lawyer. Anything, actually, except a drummer and that is exactly what Zak became.
Ringo taught him one lesson before telling Zak to go learn the drum on his own if he wants it so bad so Zak did just that.
Zak has drummed for The Who and Oasis for more than two decades now. He has held his own and even if he does not belong to a super group like The Beatles, no one can question his talent. We can’t say the same thing about his father, can we?
7. James McCartney
James shunned the limelight. In fact, he decided to become a waiter when he was younger just as so he could stop depending on his father’s money and still put himself through school.
That seemed to have changed the past couple of years.
James McCartney made his US performing debut 14 November 2009 at the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center, during the Fourth Annual David Lynch Weekend for World Peace and Meditation in Fairfield, Iowa. I have seen him on youtube and he is okay. He has his own sound. Whether or not he succeeds doesn’t change the fact that he has some stout heart to survive on his own and get into the same industry his father practically co-own.
6. Dhani Harrison
His first dive into music is right after George Harrison’s death on 29 November 2001. He collaborated with Jeff Lynne to complete George’s final album, Brainwashed, which was released in 2002.
He has since independently released an album with his first band thenewno2. His sound was very psychedelic.
Now, he has a new band called A Fistful of Mercy together with Ben Harper and Joseph Arthur. Man! These three know how to make great music.
If only these three could get major label support, they will go places.
5. Julian Lennon
Julian Lennon is the one who has enjoyed the most commercial success among everyone else on this list. He enjoyed immediate success with his debut 1984 album Valotte and was even nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1985. He produced two top ten hits, the title track “Valotte”, and “Too Late For Goodbyes”. Lennon promoted the album with music videos for the two hits made by movie director Sam Peckinpah and producer Martin Lewis.
His second album, 1986’s The Secret Value of Daydreaming reached number 32 on the Billboard Magazine’s album chart, and produced the single “Stick Around”, which was his first #1 single on the U.S. Album Rock Tracks chart. He recorded the song “Because”, which was made famous by The Dave Clark Five, in the UK for Clark’s 1986 musical, Time (the single is out of print). He hit number five in Australia with the 1989 single “Now You’re In Heaven”, which also gave him his second #1 hit on the Album Rock Tracks chart in the USA.
He has always been criticized for sounding too much like his father and not sounding enough like his father. Well, all of you shut up. He is his father’s son.
4. Leila Ali
When Laila first told her father, Muhammad Ali, that she was planning on pursing a boxing career he was not happy about her going into such a dangerous profession. But Laila she pressed on and got his father’s support later on.
Laila is a world champion and has gone through hardcore matches. One of the highlights of her career is meeting Joe Frazier’s daughter, Jackie Frazier-Lyde. On June 8, 2001, Ali and Frazier finally met. The fight was nicknamed Ali/Frazier IV in allusion to their fathers’ famous fight trilogy. Ali won by a majority judges’ decision in eight rounds.
3. Jennifer Katharine Gates
She is the daughter of Bill Gates. That’s all we know of her.
2. Marcus and Jeffrey Jordan
When you have the greatest basketball player to have ever lived, you either set new standards for greatness or be dubbed as a genetic failure. Such is the case for Michael Jordan’s sons, Jeffrey and Marcus. They are not great players, they’re ok. Ok enough to play in college.
Yet they’re games are broadcasted live on ESPN only for the whole world to wonder, “What went wrong?”
Nothing went wrong. Their father is Micheale Jordan. What on earth were you expecting.
1. Harilal Gandhi
Son of Mahatma Gandhi, Harilal wanted to go to England for higher studies but his father firmly opposed this because want to keep the Western influence out of their home. He rebelled and renounced all family ties. That was the beginning of his self destruction – he became an alcoholic, and an embezzler, criminal, publicly drowned himself with alcohol – but his greatest blow to his father is his conversion to Islam. He laterreverted back to Hinduism.
Mahatma believed all religions are one so he didn’t really mind but admitted that he was so deep into his passion when Harilal was conceived.
When Harilal appeared in his father’s funeral, he was in such a bad state that no one recognized him. He died from liver disease on 18 June 1948 in a municipal hospital in Mumbai.
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