Celebrity step-mums who break the stereotype

Becoming stepmum to new husband Brad Falchuk’s kids Isabella and Brody in 2018 was a “rough and rocky” time for Gwyneth.

“Step-parenting is a pretty tricky arena,” says the Goop founder, 52.

“What seems to happen every time is the dad’s in the middle. The kids have a hard time understanding and adjusting, they don’t want to let go of the family dynamic they had, and the dad is trying to appease both and play both sides. “The only place to act out is against the stepmother because they don’t want to push the dad away.”

She says she now has a great relationship with Isabella, 20, and Brody, 18.

“I landed on this metaphor of the sun,” she says.

“The sun is incredibly warm, and casting off light and sunshine, and doesn’t need anything back in order to be it.”

Truth Be Told star Gabrielle says becoming a stepmum changed her mind about having kids. The actor, 52, shares daughter Kaavia, six, with her basketballer husband Dwayne Wade, 43. Who is also dad to Xavier, 11, Zaya, 17, and Zaire, 22, from previous relationships, in addition to being the legal guardian of his nephew Dahveon, 23.

“When I became a stepmum, I was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. They have a mum. She’s alive. Am I supposed to be a friend?’” says Gabrielle.

“I knew that one-size-fits-all was not gonna work.”

The star says she never wanted kids, but now enthuses, “There’s no place I’d rather be than with them.

When Sleepless in Seattle actor Rita wed Forrest Gump star Tom Hanks. She embraced the children from his first marriage, daughter Elizabeth, and son Colin.

Elizabeth, now 43, says she found a safe place to land with Rita, sharing just this year, “Rita’s not really a stepmother. She’s my other mother. When I say my parents, I really mean my dad and Rita, because they’ve been together since before I can really remember.”

Earlier this year, Elizabeth, under the name E.A. Hanks, wrote a heartbreaking memoir of her abusive childhood with her mother Samantha Lewes, who died in 2002, aged 49.

Samantha gained primary custody of Elizabeth and Colin after she and Tom split in 1985, but Elizabeth says her mother struggled with mental illness and addiction, and recalls a childhood marked with “confusion, violence, deprivation and love”.

Tom and Rita gained primary custody of Elizabeth at the age of 14, after Samantha struck her in the face.

Says Elizabeth of Rita, 68, Tom, 69, Colin, 47, and her two half-brothers Chet Hanks, 34, and Truman Hanks, 29, “We’re a posse.”

She was once a Desperate Housewife, but these days, Eva is a mum-of-one and a stepmother to three! When The Land of Women star, 50, tied the knot with Mexican businessman José Bastón, 57, in 2016, she instantly became an enthusiastic stepmum.

Her husband shares three children with his first wife. Eldest daughter Natalia, now 29, and Mariana and José, 21 – the surviving siblings from a set of triplets. Their brother Sebastian died days after birth.

“They’ve been such a gift in my life,” Eva, then aged 40, gushed of her new stepkids.

“I should be thinking about having children, but I feel like my life is full. I don’t feel like we are lacking because we don’t have a baby. We are fulfilled. If there is anything else to come, it would be icing on the cake.”

As it happened, the cake was iced! In 2018, at the age of 43, Eva gave birth to their son Santiago.

The world was intrigued when it was revealed Princess Beatrice was set to marry millionaire property tycoon Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi. And that she would be stepmum to his young son Christopher Woolf, affectionately called “Wolfie”.

The pair tied the knot in the midst of the Covid pandemic and Beatrice, 36, dotes on her “bonus child” Wolfie, now nine, calling it a “great honour” to be in his life.

Wolfie’s now the proud big brotherto Sienna, three, and Athena, eight months, who are Edo, 41, and Beatrice’s two daughters.
His mum, architect Dara Huang, 42, is thrilled to have Beatrice as a co-parent.

“Wolfie has had two sets of parents trying to help him on both sides and I just think, ‘The more, the merrier,’” says Dara.

“I don’t understand people who are divorced and then hold their children as collateral. It’s about creating a happy home and lifestyle.”