These parents have taken advantage of their famous children

Staff January 25, 2019

78 4 minutes read

Listen this article

Rihanna sued her father, Ronald Fenty, for false advertising and invasion of privacy. These are other parents who have taken advantage of their famous sons

These parents have taken advantage of their famous sons

Rihanna's lawsuit against her father, Ronald Fenty, has already been made public, alleging that he has been using her name to benefit from his own entertainment company.

Leer en español: Estos padres se han aprovechado de la fama de sus hijos

According to Rolling Stone magazine, Rihanna's father, along with his partner Moses Perkins, has a company called Fenty Entertainment through which he has used his daughter's name to sign contracts and negotiate tours. On its website and social networks, the company claims to be linked to the singer, while Rihanna claims to have nothing to do with her father's company.

Among the deals that Ronald Fenty had signed on behalf of Rihanna, was Latin American tour that included 15 concerts that would have given 15 million dollars and sets of 15 minutes in Los Angeles and Las Vegas that would have given Fenty a total of 400,000 dollars. Rolling Stone also says that according to the lawsuit, Ronald Fenty claimed to run the business at the hands of Roc Nation, the singer's brand. Rihanna, however, claimed that no one at Roc Nation had any idea of her father's business.

The Fenty brand, without a doubt, is already associated with the singer, who has already used her last name for her lingerie and makeup brands. Fenty Entertainment, however, has nothing to do with Rihanna, who has already patented the Fenty brand. So what the singer and her lawyers are looking for, is to make her father no longer use this name to avoid misunderstanding altogether and to associate the singer with her father or her company.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. The topic of parents who take advantage of their famous children is very recurrent in documentaries and biopics inspired by the lives of artists, especially those of those who achieved fame even at a young age. Here we show you other cases.

Mitch and Amy Winehouse

In 2015 Amy premiered, a documentary about the life of the British singer Amy Winehouse. He quickly became the highest-grossing documentary film in England and won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. In it, the life of the singer was explored from her own perspective: testimonies of people close to her were interspersed with images and personal archive videos to give an intimate perspective.

The first image we see is Amy as a little girl singing with a friend. Since then, her talent was seen and from very young, she began to climb rapidly in the music industry. Her father, Mitch Winehouse, was her manager. The documentary explores this aspect of the singer's life and shows the problematic relationship she had with her father. Although it can be seen that it was partly thanks to her management that the singer reached fame at such an early age, one also sees the excessive advantage that her father brought out of Amy when she was very young.

The documentary denounces the little personal space that the press and the media left to the singer and how this worsened her addiction to alcohol. It is very strong, then, a scene in which Amy does not want to pose more with fans and her father forces her to do it.

In subsequent statements, Mitch Winehouse said he did not like the documentary and that although it shows beautiful images of his daughter, it is exaggerated and gives a bad image of him. Last year he confirmed, on the other hand, the posthumous tour of his daughter, who will use a hologram and which he will take care of completely.

Luisito Rey and Luis Miguel

Since he reached the age of majority and left the record company of his father, Luis Miguel has avoided at all costs in the interviews questions about their parents. We already know there's a mystery behind the disappearance of his mother and all the theories behind it.

Last year, Netflix launched in collaboration with the singer a series about the life of Luis Miguel. In it, we can see how his father, the also singer Luisito Rey, saw from an early age the talent of Luis Miguel.

The series revolves mostly around the problematic relationship of the singer with his father, who exploited him since he was a child: he gave him pills to stay awake, he accepted contracts in films that Luis Miguel did not want to do, manipulates, cheats, it puts you in a fiscal problem, etc. The series even goes so far as to imply that Luisito Rey is guilty of the disappearance of Marcela Basteri, mother of the singer.

With the success of the series, it became fashionable in Mexico to wear t-shirts and merchandising with the words "I hate Luisito Rey".

Debbie Nelson and Eminem

All the songs of the rapper in which he shoots his own mother are famous. One of the best known is this, "Cleaning Out My Closet", which describes their toxic relationship. Both mother and son were abandoned by Eminem's father when he was still a baby.

Since then, the rapper had a problematic relationship with her. Unlike the other cases we have listed, Eminem's mother wanted to enrich herself by not taking advantage of her son's name and image, but by dirtying it. In 2002, he sued for $7 million and then wrote a biographical book in which he strove to damage the rapper's image. In 2009, Debbie Nelson became ill with cancer and asked her son to reconcile and he paid for his medical treatment. In 2014 he released his single "Headlights" in which he apologizes to his mother.