Blended Families! Gwyneth Paltrow, Catherine Zeta-Jones and More Celebrity Stepparents

Celeb stepparents share what it’s like when getting married means blending families – for better or for worse!

Antonio Banderes

Presenting her onetime stepfather with a trophy at the Hollywood Film Awards, Dakota Johnson revealed that despite the 65-year-old’s 2015 divorce from her mom, Melanie Griffith, 68, she still considers him part of the family. “I come from a family of many a marriage, and I got lucky,” the 35-year-old said (mom Melanie wed three times; dad Don Johnson, 75, wed four times). “I got a bonus dad, who I realized that, over time, is actually one of the most influential people in my whole life.”

Gwyneth Paltrow

In a recent Goop podcast, the Oscar winner chatted with her husband, Brad Falchuk, 54, about some stepparenting regrets. After their 2018 wedding, the pair didn’t move in together for a year, in deference to her kids, Apple, 20, and Moses, 19, and his children, Isabella, 20, and Brody, 18. “We were trying to kind of land the plane very, very gently and slowly and get everybody on board,” the 52-year-old explained. “But I’m not sure that it didn’t just prolong that thing of, like, we don’t know what we’re doing.”

Gabrielle Union-Wade

Before the 52-year-old welcomed daughter Kaavia, 6, with husband Dwyane Wade, 43, she was already the stepmom to his three kids, Zaya, 18, Zaire, 23, and Xavier, 11, and nephew Dahveon, 23. “What I realized very quickly is you will never, ever — I don’t care if the other parent is dead — you will never be able to replace the other parent,” the actress shared on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast, adding, “That is not your job.”

Blake Shelton

It takes one to know one! “I have a stepfather in my life who’s one of my heroes,” the country star, 49, said during an interview with KFROG’s The Ride with Kimo & Heather, after marrying Gwen Stefani, 55, and becoming the stepdad to her kids Kingston, 19, Zuma, 17, and Apollo, 11. “I love my stepfather, and I look up to him, and he’s like a father to me, so I have good inspiration in my life for how to do this and the kind of stepdad I want to be.”

Catherine Zeta-Jones

The Wednesday star plays an aloof mom on the Netflix hit, but her stepson Cameron, 46, has nothing but good things to say about the 56-year-old, who wed his dad, Michael Douglas, 81, in 2000. “When she came into our family, it could so easily have gone another way,” Cameron said of Catherine according to Daily Mail, now mom to Dylan, 25, and Carys, 22. “You hear stories all the time about the younger stepmother pushing away the kids from the previous marriage. But from the first day I met her, she said, ‘I want us to be friends, and I want you to know that you are a huge part of our family.’”