9 Celebs Who Had to Financially Cut Off Their Family

Find out why these celebrities cut off their family…

Tyler Perry may be a billionaire, but he believes that everyone needs to work for their money. While discussing finances, Tyler said that giving handouts is the worst thing to do and can “handicap” people. Looking back, Tyler says his aunt would always call him asking for money, so he gave her a job — but it didn’t end up working out. 

“She said she wanted a job. She would always call asking for money, I would send her the money. I said, ‘Listen, I want to help you. I want to help you build this thing, not be welfare to you. So, let me give you a job,’” he said on Den of Kings. “She wasn’t coming in, was calling in all the time…‘Well, you gotta go.’ Because you want me to hand you the money, but you don’t want to work for it. See, that doesn’t work for me.”

Tyler later added that after his mother died in 2009, he also financially cut off the family members that she asked him to support, telling them they had 60 days to find a job.

Before Aaron Carter’s untimely passing, he had a tumultuous relationship with his family. Back in 2003, he was forced to fire his manager, mother, Jane, after she allegedly began dipping into his earnings. At the time, Aaron said that a “significant” portion of his earnings from a tour, which was reportedly more than $100,000, had been tapped into by Jane, so he had to cut her off financially.

“I feel betrayed by my own mother. I worked hard for months — 10, 11 hours a day, not including school and press appearances — and I come home and owe money!” Aaron said in a statement.

Mariah Carey had to financially cut off her sister Alison while she was struggling with addiction. Years before Alison’s passing, Mariah and Alison had a turbulent relationship — but the singer fully supported her sister both emotionally and financially. Unfortunately, Alison had fallen into the depths of addiction and couldn’t be helped, as much as Mariah tried. 

According to TMZ, Mariah finally felt that she had to cut Alison off, in the hopes that she would get back on the straight and narrow, but it never happened. Mariah was still estranged from her sister at the time of Alison’s death in 2024.

Don Johnson decided to financially cut off all of his children when they turned 18 — only making an exception if they decided to go to college. For his daughter, Dakota Johnson, she decided against pursuing higher education in favor of kicking off her acting career. Looking back, she admits it was tough and there were moments where she couldn’t afford groceries or rent — but if she was ever really in a bind, she could usually convince her mom, Melanie Griffith, to help out.

“It was difficult, but I figured it out. He said to everybody — by ‘everybody,’ I mean all of my siblings…He calls it the ‘payroll.’ It’s an allowance. He said if you go to college, you still get an allowance. And I was like, ‘Well, I’m going to be an actress,’ so he was like, ‘Alright, well, you’re on your own.’ I was cut off,” she told Today.

Bruce Paltrow and his wife, Blythe Danner, believed in the value of hard work, so when their children turned 18, they decided to stop financially supporting them. Since then, his daughter Gwyneth Paltrow has never taken a dime from her parents, even if it meant she was totally broke as a young adult.

“He said, ‘You are completely on your own. So he never gave me anything. I never had any supplementation, he never helped me with my rent, I never had a trust fund. So the idea that I am spoiled or that I didn’t work for what I have, that’s just not accurate. But I can see how somebody might have that perception,” Gwyneth shared on BBC News’ HARDTalk.

Former Disney star Billy Unger not only fired his manager father William, but he also sued him. In 2015, he took his dad to court after he reportedly “[mishandled] nearly $400K of his earnings.” William also reportedly spent over $100,000 of Billy’s money to take a woman on vacation and was gouging him for a 33.3% commission, over double the industry standard. In the lawsuit, Billy asked for his dad to repay the money as well as damages. It’s unclear how the legal battle played out.

Before his passing, the late Robert Kardashian and his then-wife Kris Jenner financially cut off their children when they finished college. Looking back, Kim, Khloé and Kourtney Kardashian explained that their dad wanted them to get a job as soon as they graduated so that they could support themselves.

“I was cut off when I graduated college,” Kourtney recalled on Inside Edition. “My dad was like, ‘You need to get a job. You have a month, I’ll help you find one. But then you have to make money and support yourself.’”

Shirley MacLaine cut off her daughter Sachi Parker right after she finished high school at age 17. Even though Sachi says she wanted to go to college, Shirley didn’t think it was important and would not pay for Sachi’s education. When Sachi later asked for $500 to buy a used car, Shirley only agreed to give it to her as a loan, with interest charged.

“She doesn’t see the importance of it because she didn’t go [to college]. Neither did my father,” Sachi told the Hartford Courant years later.

When LeAnn Rimes began her music career as a teenager, her parents ended up taking on a large role in her business affairs. By the time she was 16, she decided she wanted to part ways with her parents — not only because she was ready to be independent but because her father had been pocketing her earnings. She filed a lawsuit against her father Wilbur, claiming he and his partner had stolen $7 million of her earnings. While the situation caused a rift in their relationship, they eventually made amends.

“There’s so much more life ahead of me. To carry on a burden of hating someone. It’s just not worth it. I’ve never hated my dad. I just wanted a dad. I guess I just really disliked where he was in my life. I just wanted him to be my father,” LeAnn told ABC News.