Celebrities who were raised by their grandparents — including Jamie Foxx

The ‘Wonderful Tonight’ singer and guitarist Eric Clapton is still beloved today, with fans finding inspiration and comfort in his classic tracks.

But his life before international fame was anything but ordinary. According to NBCNews, the artist believed his grandmother Rose and her husband were his parents. In reality, his mother was his ‘older sister’ who had given birth when she was still a teenager.

Jamie Foxx is best known as the action lead of Django Unchained and Collateral, but when it comes to family, he’s not afraid to show his softer side.

The actor was adopted by his mother’s adoptive parents shortly after his birth, according to The Washington Post. During his 2005 Oscars acceptance speech, Jamie addressed his late grandmother, revealing, “She talks to me in my dreams. I can’t wait to go to sleep tonight because we got a lot to talk about. I love you.”

Essayist, civil rights activist and poet Maya Angelou penned beloved books like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Letter to My Daughter. 

Following her parents’ divorce, Maya was sent to live with her father’s mother, Annie Henderson at the age of three.

After his mother left the family and his father remarried and moved away, both Willie Nelson and his sister were raised by their grandparents who taught them the joy to be found in music, per IMDb.

Now, Willie is internationally beloved for tracks like ‘Highwayman’, ‘On the Road Again’ and ‘Always on My Mind’. He also penned Patsy Cline’s ‘Crazy’ which is an international favourite to this day. 

According to The Guardian, Oprah Winfrey spent time living with her grandmother from her infancy to the age of six. She was then sent back to live with her mother.

Since then, she’s written several self-help books, autobiographies and a guide to healthy eating, as well as hosting The Oprah Winfrey Show for 25 years from 1986.  

Al Pacino has starred in hits like The Godfather, The Panic in Needle Park and Dog Day Afternoon. He also more recently worked on The Irishman and Killing Castro.

But rewinding the clock back to before his A-list career, Al’s parents divorced when the actor was just two years old, his mother relocating to the South Bronx to live with his grandparents.

Dylan McDermott is a familiar face on screen with roles in Steel Magnolias, The Practice and Law and Order: Organized Crime.

But Dylan didn’t have an easy start to life. He lived with his mother, grandmother and sister for a while before his mother was tragically killed by her boyfriend. His grandmother subsequently raised the pair by herself.