A wise man once said, “more money … more problems”. One of those problems that the rich and famous have to deal with is women desperately wanting to carry their babies in exchange for a lifetime of “child” support. Cha-ching! Here are 27 guys who were careless (or unlucky) enough to get to the stage of being forced to take a paternity test:
Marc Anthony
The singer and proud papa to 5-month-old twins with wife Jennifer Lopez had paternity charges filed against him in 2003 by a Miami waitress. The charges came near the end of his on off marriage to Dayanara Torres and after multiple DNA-tests, Anthony was found to not be the father.
Boris Becker
Becker is a former World Number 1 professional tennis player from Germany who claimed the men’s singles title at Wimbledon in 1984 when he was only 17. He has since retired from the game but his personal issues have kept him in the media. In February 2001, Becker acknowledged having a daughter with Angela Ermakova after a 1999 sexual meet up with her in a closest at a restaurant in London. He initially denied he was the father but a DNA test proved otherwise. Becker obtained joint custody of his daughter Anna in 2007 after he expressed concerns over how her mother was raising her. Ermakova put the young girl on public display in fashion shows, interviews and in a promotion for a children’s cosmetic line. (That cosmetics company was fined for violating child-labor regulations for the promotion.)
Steve Bing
Bing woke up on his 18th birthday with an inheritance of an estimated $600 million from his grandfather in his name. He has since worked in the film industry and has donated a large amount of his money to the Democratic Party. In 2001, Bing was involved in two high-profile paternity cases. Actress Elizabeth Hurley announced she was pregnant with Bing’s child and he filed a lawsuit to establish his paternity. The DNA test proved he is in fact the father and Bing has given generous support to Hurley to raise his son. In the same year, Bing sued Kirk Kerkorian for invasion of privacy after Kerkorian’s private investigators took Bing’s dental floss from his trash to collect his DNA. Kerkorian was in court with ex-wife Lisa Bonder about the amount of child support he was to pay but Kerkorian suspected that Bonder’s former boyfriend Bing was in fact the father. The privacy lawsuit was settled out of court and Kerkorian has since tried to convince Bing to be more involved as a father to his daughter.
Larry Birkhead
Birkhead was relatively unknown until the famous paternity trial over a deceased Anna Nicole Smith’s baby daughter Dannielynn. He joined the line of a total of five men claiming to be the father of the baby and in April 2007, Birkhead was proven by a DNA test to be the baby daddy.
Robert Blake
Blake is best known for his Emmy Award- winning role on the TV show Baretta from 1975 to 1978. In 1999, Blake met Bonnie Lee Bakley who was known for exploiting older men for money, especially celebrities. When Bakley became pregnant, she told both Blake and Marlon Brando’s son Christian, whom she was also dating, that the child was theirs. Bakley then claimed the child was Brando’s but Blake ordered her to take a paternity test to prove the paternity. DNA tests proved that Blake was the father of Bakely’s child and the two were married in 2000. It was his second marriage and her tenth. On May 4, 2001, Blake and Bakley went to an Italian restaurant in Studio City and while Bakley was sitting in the car parked around the corner after dinner, she was murdered by a gunshot to the head. Blake says he wasn’t there when Bakley was shot because he had gone back to the restaurant for his gun but no other diners or employees remembered Blake coming back in. Blake served almost a year in jail before being granted bail of $1.5 million. In March 2005, Blake was found not guilty of Bakley’s murder. He was ordered to pay $30 million after Bakley’s children filed a civil suit in 2005 saying that he was responsible for their mother’s death
Neil Bush
President George Bush’s younger brother has been involved in various business deals and co-founded Ignite! Learning in 1999, which is an educational software corporation, started to help students with learning disabilities like his son Pierce. His paternity case is where things get tricky. Bush married Sharon and they had three kids and were married for 23 years before divorcing in 2003. Supposedly, this divorce stemmed from an email sent by Bush to Sharon stating that he no longer loved her and wanted a divorce. Bush then got together with Maria Andrews, a volunteer helping Neil’s mother Barbara Bush with her correspondence. Andrews was divorced and also had three children. Sharon was not too keen on this and threatened to write a Bush family tell-all until Neil upped his support to about $30,000 a year. You would think it would end here but nope. Sharon decided on the day the divorce was to be final that she wasn’t sure she wanted to go through with it and wanted DNA testing done on Andrew’s youngest child because she believed that Neil had fathered him. The judge said no and the divorce was final. Sharon spoke out about Neil’s Asian hotel lady friends and Neil’s camp shot back with reports that Sharon ripped hair out of his head to make a voodoo doll. Sharon said she wanted to see if he was using drugs but the tests were inconclusive. THEN, Maria Andrew’s ex-husband Robert sued Sharon for defamation over the claim of Neil’s paternity to Maria’s son. Neil is not the father. The end. Whew….that could be a season of a soap opera!
Rae Carruth
Carruth was a first-round draft pick in the 1997 NFL Draft and was on the team until the middle of the 1999 season. Carruth was already paying $3,500 a month in child support and when he found out that the woman he had been dating, Cherica Adams, was pregnant, he looked for a way out of owing another monthly payment. Carruth tried to get her to have an abortion but she refused and said that he then became distant. On November 15, 1999, Adams and Carruth went to a movie and left in separate cars with Adams following Carruth. A car pulled up next to Adams and shot her four times in the back. Adams called 911 and said she thought Carruth was involved since he blocked her car and she couldn’t escape the bullets. Adams later died but the baby could be saved. Carruth was arrested along with three other guys for attempted murder and was released on $3 million bond. He promised to turn himself in if Adams or her child died but when she did, Carruth tried to flee. He was found in a friend’s trunk and is now serving a sentence of at least 18 years and 11 months in North Carolina.
Charlie Chaplin
Chaplin was an Academy Award winning comedic actor as well as a director, composer and musician in the early Hollywood cinema era. He was connected to a number of women during his life and one proved to be quite a nuisance. Chaplin was considering Joan Berry for a role in a proposed film and had a brief affair with her in 1942. Berry started acting a little too crazy and showed signs of severe mental illness so the relationship was ended. In 1943, Berry filed a paternity suit against him after having a child and even though blood tests proved that Chaplin wasn’t the father, Berry’s attorney was able to convince the court that the tests were inadmissible as evidence. Chaplin was then forced to pay child support. (California law was changed because of this ruling and blood tests were then allowed as evidence.) Prosecutors also brought Mann Act (used to address human trafficking for immoral reasons such as prostitution) charges against Chaplin and even though he was later acquitted, the trials severely hurt his public image. In 1953, Berry was found walking around barefoot in the streets, carrying a pair of baby sandals and a child’s ring and murmuring: “This is magic” and was subsequently institutionalized.
DMX
DMX was an especially popular rap artist in the late 1990s and also went on to star in numerous movies and wrote his autobiography in 2002. DMX was ordered to pay $5,000 a month in child support to Davita Oden after a paternity test proved that he was her then 4-year-old’s father in a 2006 ruling. In 2008, he was ordered to pay $1.5 million in damages and $5,000 a month in support to Monique Wayne, who gave birth to his baby in 2004, after he denied being the father. DMX went on to claim that he didn’t remember even having sex with Wayne and that she must have raped him after they met at a club in Washington D.C. He was quoted as saying, “I would remember. It ain’t like she’s a pretty girl.” DMX has been married to wife Tashera since 1999 and the two have four children.
David Durenberger
Durenberger served as U.S. Senator for Minnesota from 1978 to 1995 and was slapped with a paternity suit in 1992 from a woman who claimed that he raped her in 1963. The case was thrown out when blood tests confirmed that Durenberger was not in fact the father of her 29-year-old.
Mick Jagger
The 64-year-old rocker has been performing with his group the Rolling Stones since 1962: 46 years! They are still able to rake in the dough even after all these years and proved it by making $437 million on their 2007 tour. Jagger dated actress Marsha Hunt for two years but when she became pregnant in 1970, wanted nothing to do with the child. The two were in court for nine years and Jagger was finally ordered to pay child support. He dated model Luciana Morad for several months while married to Jerry Hall and denied paternity when Morad became pregnant. DNA tests proved that he was the father and Jagger will be paying Morad $10,000 a month in support until their son is 21.
Steve Jobs
Jobs is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Apple Inc. and stinkin’ rich. He’s known for usually wearing the same outfit: a black long-sleeved St. Croix mock turtleneck, Levis 501 jeans and New Balance 992 sneakers. I guess money doesn’t always guarantee wardrobe variability. At the age of 23, Jobs got Chris-Ann Brennan pregnant and denied it for two years while she was forced to go on welfare. He even claimed he was “sterile and infertile” until a paternity test proved he was the father. Jobs’ own father got Jobs’ mother pregnant when she was 23 and the couple gave Jobs up for adoption. His father married his mother but later abandoned her and their 4-year-old daughter.
Michael Jordan
A five-time NBA MVP, Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships in the 90s. In 1991 and 1998, he supposedly promised $5 million to former girlfriend Karla Knafel to avoid a paternity suit and to keep the relationship a secret. Jordan sued Knafel in 2002 to prove in court that the deal was unenforceable. The paternity test showed that Jordan wasn’t the baby’s father and even though Knafel’s attorney argued that the contract was not based upon actual paternity, the court still ruled in Jordan’s favor and he didn’t have to pay.
Kirk Kerkorian
Kerkorian is the president/CEO of Tracinda Corporation, which is a private investment company that has major investments in big companies like MGM Mirage. He is worth an estimated $16 billion and is listed as the world’s 41st richest person. Kerkorian raised eyebrows in 2002 when he admitted that the 4-year-old girl, that he claimed was his daughter and had been paying $320,000 a month in support for, was not in fact his. Lisa Bonder,37, and Kerkorian,84, agreed to fake DNA tests so he would look cool by having a kid with a woman less than half his age. The saliva used for the DNA tests was from one of his daughters. When Bonder started demanding more and more money, Kerkorian decided to bring out the truth. Steve Bing was proved to be the father and Kerkorian continued to support the child anyways.
Paul McCartney
McCartney was a member of the musical group the Beatles and went on to have a successful solo career after the Beatles disbanded. Starting in 1959, he is rumored to have had a three-year affair with Erika Hübers while the band was in Hamburg, Germany before they hit it big. The claim was dismissed after blood tests proved that McCartney wasn’t the father in 1984 and it was assumed that that was all she wrote. In 2007, his faux daughter Bettina Krischbin came forward and claimed that McCartney had sent a stand-in to give the blood test and sign the papers. A right-handed person signed the papers while Paul is left-handed and Krischbin was out to prove that the former Beatle was her dad. The case ended up being thrown out because the statue of limitations for fraud is only five years.
Edgar Mitchell
Mitchell was an astronaut on Apollo 14 and spent 9 hours on the moon in 1971, the sixth man to walk on the moon. Mitchell’s second marriage to Anita Rettig ended in 1984 when he had an affair with a former Playboy model. Sheilah Ledbetter then filed a paternity suit against Mitchell in 1986 and it proved that he was the father of her son. They married three years later and divorced ten years after that.
Yves Montand
Montand was a French singer and actor who was in a number of films mainly in the 60s and 70s. A woman accused Montand of being the father of her daughter and took him to court to try and get a DNA sample. Montand adamantly refused but the woman kept pushing even after his death. Finally the court ruled that the woman won the right to have Montaned exhumed so a sample could be taken. After all that, Montand was not the father.
Eddie Murphy
Murphy holds the claim as the highest grossing film star in history with a total of 33 films grossing over $3.4 billion in the U.S. alone. He dated Spice Girl Melanie Brown following his divorce in 2006 and when she became pregnant, she stated that he was the father. Murphy told the press not to jump to conclusions and that he would only know whose child it was when it came out and had a blood test. On June 22, 2007, DNA tests confirmed that Murphy is the father and Brown says that he will have nothing to do with her daughter. Brown’s daughter brings Murphy’s total to seven kids.
Juan Perón
Perón was elected as President of Argentina three times and along with his wife Eva, became a voice for the working class of the country. He died in 1974 and was reburied twice before finally being moved to a mausoleum at his former summer residence in San Vicente. The move cause a lot of uproar and riots ensued but the police were able to contain the violence enough to get Perón to his final resting spot. Martha Holgado, 72, had been trying for 15 years to get a DNA sample from his corpse to prove she was Perón’s daughter and the move finally gave her that chance. The test proved she was not his daughter.
Elvis Presley
He is referred to as the “King of Rock N’ Roll” and made a huge cultural impact during his lifetime. Presley was a singer and actor and maintains his high-profile status even in death, ranking as the top-earning deceased celebrity to this day. In March 1971, six years before his death, Presley had slept with a member of the audience in Tulsa. She went on to give birth to a son and claimed it was his. DNA testing didn’t exist yet but Elvis established a $2,000,000 trust fund payable when his alleged son turned 24 just in case.
Busta Rhymes
Rhymes released two albums before breaking out with the 1996 solo hit single “Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check.” In 1999, 25-year-old Jill Miskelly filed a paternity against the rapper and the test results showed that there was a 99.9964 percent chance that he was the father. The results came in July but Rhymes had already been voluntarily paying $1,200 a month in child support. Miskelly attempted to have the amount raised.
Chris Rock
Rock is a comedian, actor and director and was voted as the fifth greatest stand-up comedian of all time by Comedy Central. In 2007, Kali Bowyer, a freelance journalist and former actress, claimed that Rock was the father of her son and filed a paternity suit against him. She claimed that Rock’s alleged son was in need of hospitalization. After the DNA test results came back, they proved that Rock was not the child’s father.
Mike Tyson
Tyson is a retired boxer who remains the youngest man ever to win and lose a world heavyweight title. Most people hear his name and think of the infamous ear biting Evander Holyfield incident of 1997. In 1991 Natalie Fears files a $12 million paternity lawsuit against Tyson and the results showed that he is not the father of her son.
There’s a few that have dealt with paternity issues but didn’t have to take the test…..
Ol’ Dirty Bastard
The rapper died in 2004 and his widow Icelene Jones has stored some of his DNA just in case anyone comes forward trying to claim paternity. He has about 12 or 13 kids with a number of women and 3 kids with his widow Icelene.
Bill Cosby
The comedian admitted that he had an affair with Shawn Upshaw in the 70s and paid her more than $100,000. In 1997, their daughter Autumn Jackson threatened to go to the tabloids if Cosby didn’t give her $40 million. After the trial, Cosby offered to take a DNA test but paternity was never proven because Jackson refused to submit a blood sample. She was sentenced to 26 months in prison for extortion but only served 14 months.
Mike Epps
The actor has been married to Michelle McCain since 2006 and is currently being sued by a Georgia woman claiming that her baby born in December 2007 is his. Stay tuned for the results.
Goran Visnjic
The former ER heartthrob was hit with a paternity suit by Mirela Rupic from his native Croatia in July 2007. She claimed her 4-month-old daughter was Visnjic’s and that he refused to acknowledge her as his. Visnjic and his wife have been married since 1999 and adopted a newborn boy in April 2007. Just before he was scheduled to take the paternity test he confirmed that he is the father and that he remembered very little of his affair with Rupic because he jetlagged and drunk at the time. He had been paying $1,000 a month in support but Rupic is looking for more.
