The Black Sheep
Skeletons tumble out of the family closet
By RICHARD HORGAN, TMZ.COM FREELANCE PRODUCER
When it comes to the world of dysfunctional celebrity families, it takes a special kind of crazy to stand out from the pack. The five whack jobs we've assembled below are the blackest of the black sheep, people whose famous last names and infamously bad behavior coalesced into the most frightening form of familial skeleton imaginable.
Mariah Carey's Whore Sister
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Mariah Carey's astonishing 2005 comeback is that the tabloids haven't tried to make a bigger deal out of her sad sack sister Alison. Back in June, Mariah's 44-year-old sibling was caught in a sting operation at the West Shore Marina in Huntington, Long Island, where she was booked for her second prostitution offense. Alison pled guilty and is on probation; her next court date is Sept. 15, 2006.
The broad strokes of her life are unremittingly sordid: welfare, homelessness, streetwalking, and apparently, a long history of outlandish claims about helping finance Mariah's early career.
She tried unsuccessfully in 2000 to shop around a tell-all book.
When the 2006 Grammy Awards are presented at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles on February 8, it will likely be a moment of triumph for a woman once ridiculed for her performance in 'Glitter.' But if on her way to the show, Mariah's limo skirts past Skid Row, you can bet she might feel a brief twinge of sadness for the sister she has lost forever.
Kevin Spacey's Nazi Dad
Geoff Fowler, the man Kevin Spacey's brother referred to simply as "The Creature" while they were growing up in Boise, Idaho, passed away in 1992. But the scars evidently still run deep.
The two-time Oscar winner inadvertently dredged up the details of his horrific family past last year when he was mugged in the early morning hours at a London, England park. That in turn prompted older brother Randall, who still lives in Idaho and works as a grocery store cashier, to spill the beans about the four years of violent sexual abuse he endured at the hands of Fowler. A member of the American Nazi Party, Fowler trimmed his mustache and combed his hair to better resemble Hitler.
When mom Kathleen passed away in Los Angeles in 2004, her Hollywood star son had the cremation paperwork made out under the false name of Ruby Stevens, to keep the press at bay. But in light of everything from dad's idea of a 1966 family vacation (a nudist colony), to dad's idea of civilized dinner table conversation (the "lie" of the Holocaust), it's something short of a miracle that Spacey didn't wind up in real life like his 'American Beauty' protagonist.
Reese Witherspoon's Sexually Insane Brother
Finding work for family members on the set of a big budget Hollywood movie is a common celebrity practice. In the case of surefire 'Walk the Line' Best Actress nominee Reese Witherspoon, the family member was brother John and the movie was her 2002 comedy hit
'Sweet Home Alabama.'
So no one was more shocked than Reese when, later that same year, in what he claims was the result of a blacked out alcoholic stupor, her brother wandered over to the home of a female neighbor in Nashville, Tenn. and started groping her on the couch. In the end, Witherspoon was placed on two years' probation and forced to attend weekly sessions at the local Vanderbilt Institute for the Treatment of Addiction. A separate civil suit by the victim of his wayward Neighborhood Watch was quietly settled out of court, and the terms are confidential.
If Robert Downey Jr. can come back from his Malibu mosey to the snap, crackle and pop of a film like 'Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,' then surely Reese's older brother by three years can find a way to right himself for future all-American on-set employment. After all, the signature of one of his and her ancestors, John Witherspoon, is on the Declaration of Independence.
Madonna's Boozy Bro
On the grand scale of celebrity sibling fallouts, the Madonna Ciccone/Martin Ciccone rift is about as deep as a dancefloor confession. Still, the idea of the Material Girl deciding back in 2000 that she had to keep her alcohol-abusing brother away from the Guy Ritchie wedding punch bowl made for some mighty funny headlines.
Over the years, Madonna has occasionally picked up the tab for her brother's rehab sessions and, in return, Martin refreshingly takes full responsibility for his scattershot existence. "I'm a casualty of my own life," he once told the Associated Press. "I'm not bitter. At times, my sister has been good to me."
At the peak of his drinking powers, Ciccone was arrested in Michigan in July of 1994 and held for a very long time in a local county jail because his drunk driving infraction was a third, and therefore, felonious offense. Today, you're likely to hear a whole lot more about Madonna's multi-million dollar donations to the Kabbalah movement or something of one of the singer's half dozen other siblings. But just in case you're interested, Martin is available to work as a DJ at your next bar mitzvah or wedding.
Woody Harrelson's Killer Dad
In something of a flipside, nightmare version of 'Cheers,' everybody knows the name of Woody Harrelson's dad at the Florence, Fla. maximum security prison where he is serving a life sentence for murdering a U.S. District Court judge. Ditto for Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, a Norm-and-Cliff-Claven combo from hell if there ever was one.
The various exploits of Harrelson's dad -- professional hit man with two separate convictions on murder for hire, who claims wild stories about being hauled off a homeless perch near the grassy knoll after the assassination of JFK -- go a long way in explaining the eccentricities of Hollywood's most outspoken fan of hemp and pure oxygen inhalers. Indeed, one of the few times Harrelson opened up on record about his father was during a 1997 ABC-TV interview with Barbara Walters. Among other things, he suggested that he thought dad had been professionally trained by the CIA and that his life sentence conviction in 1979 was thrown into question by the subsequent acquittal of the man who hired Harrelson and two others.
*From AOL Entertainment News
Drew Barrymore
