Top 7 Worst Celebrity Parents

Nov. 13, 2009 — -- Like The Fresh Prince said, parents just don't understand.

What don't they understand, exactly? Well, when it comes to having famous spawn, a lot. At least in the case of the following seven parents, some of whom are stars themselves.

Take Dina Lohan: it's not exactly appropriate for a mother to publicly release a recorded phone call in which she claims her daughter, Lindsay, is on the brink of death. Or look at Joe Jackson, who's turning the tables on the conventional parent-child relationship and asking for an allowance from the estate of his son, the late King of Pop. And then there's John Phillips, who raped and initiated a 10-year-long sexual relationship with his daughter, actress Mackenzie Phillips .

Take a tip from the following seven tumultuous relationships and don't rear your young'ns like them.

1. The Lohans

With infighting to rival rabid hyenas, the Lohans are the modern-day Barrymores. It's pretty much impossible to chronicle every taped phone call, public declaration, blog post and tweet that problem-addled starlet Lindsay and her divorced parents, Dina and Michael, have flung at each other since Lindsay started unraveling in 2007, following her DUI arrest.

Dina's latest move? A tape recorded phone call released to Radar Online in which she tells Michael that Lindsay's time on earth is limited. "Time is running out with this kid. I know, I'm her mother and I feel it and I'm scared," Dina says in the recording. "She'll open up to you but it's nothing compared to what's going on with this kid. And don't tell her I told you anything or try to weasel s**t out of her... she'll tell you when she's ready to talk about s**t. Right now all I know is she's starting to drink and that's bad."

2. John Philips

In September, actress Mackenzie Phillips revealed to Oprah Winfrey that her rock star father, John Phillips, raped her at age 18, sparking a 10-year-long consensual sexual relationship. Phillips, 49, the former star of '70s-'80s sitcom "One Day at a Time," said she was first raped by her father, the lead singer of the Mamas and the Papas, in a hotel room while passed out after a drug binge.

The relationship continued long after she married Jeff Sessler when she was 19-years-old, and ended only when she became pregnant and feared her father was the baby's father, Phillips said. Her father paid for an abortion. "I woke up that night from a blackout to find myself having sex with my father," Phillips said on "Oprah," reading an excerpt from her new book, "High on Arrival." "I don't know how it started."

3. Jon Voight

Here's one story that may have a happy ending on the horizon. After not speaking for eight years, earlier this month, Jon Voight told UsWeekly.com that he and daughter Angelina Jolie have reconciled. "We're in touch, but not regularly," Voight said. "We love each other, and that's the most important thing." Jolie cut off contact with her father in 2001, after he appeared on "Access Hollywood" and pleaded for the actress to seek help for her "serious mental problems."

4. Joe Simpson

Note to all stage fathers: while it's kosher to praise the beauty of your budding singer/actress/model daughter, please don't go into gory physical detail. In 2004, as Jessica Simpson was gaining street cred in the pop music scene, her father Joe, a former Baptist minister, bragged about the, ahem, assets that brought his daughter fame. "Jessica never tries to be sexy. She just is sexy," he told PageSix.com. "If you put her in a T-shirt or you put her in a bustier, she's sexy in both. She's got double D's! You can't cover those suckers up!" Now if Joe would consider covering his mouth up...

5. The Culkins

As the cute kid who skyrocketed to stardom via the "Home Alone" series of movies, Macaulay Culkin seemed like he had it made. He reigned as the decade's biggest child star, commanding $8 million a movie by 1994's "Richie Rich."

But his career came to a screeching halt when dad Kit (who also served as his manager) and mom Patricia, began fighting over control of his personal fortune, which by the mid-'90s was estimated between $17 million and $50 million. It didn't take long for almost all of that to plummet down the drain. The family was reportedly close to homelessness because of lawyer fees resulting from the feud. Macaulay ceded control of his assets to his accountant, temporarily, and by 1997, Kit gave up the fight after Manhattan Supreme Court Justice David Saxe said the "Home Alone" star and his actor siblings insisted they would "not work with Mr. Culkin," whom the judge deemed a "demanding, difficult and pugnacious man."

6. Joe Jackson

Oh, Joe. The Jackson family patriarch has been digging himself deeper and deeper into the depths of the bad dads since his son, singing icon Michael Jackson, died in June. The latest turn in this saga? Filing court papers earlier this month asking for Michael Jackson's estate to help him cover living expenses of $26,000 a month. It's surely a request that MJ would've shot down: the singer, who accused Joe of beating him, left his father out of his will, requesting that all his money go to his mother, children and charities.

7. Ryan O'Neal

Maybe Ryan was an angel to Farrah Fawcett in her final days. In terms of rearing his son, who no doubt picked up his drug habit from dear old dad, O'Neal might be better termed a fallen angel. The 67-year-old Oscar-nominated actor was arrested in September 2008 along with his son Redmond, and was later charged with felony methamphetamine possession. Sheriff's deputies had searched the actor's home while doing a check on Redmond O'Neal, who was on probation for a previous drug conviction. In January, O'Neal plead guilty to a felony drug charge and was ordered into an 18-month drug diversion program.

The bad dad hasn't only wrecked havoc on Redmond's life. O'Neal hit on his own daughter, Tatum O'Neal, at Fawcett's funeral. "I had just put the casket in the hearse and I was watching it drive away when a beautiful blond woman comes up and embraces me," O'Neal told Vanity Fair in an interview featured in the magazine's August issue. "I said to her, 'You have a drink on you? You have a car?' She said, 'Daddy, it's me -- Tatum!' I was just trying to be funny with a strange Swedish woman, and it's my daughter. It's so sick."