Owen Wilson is a renowned actor with several successful movies. He’s also a father of three, but only a present father to two of them. In most of his public appearances, Wilson loves to share stories about his sons, but not his daughter Lyla, who celebrated her fourth birthday in 2022.
Owen Wilson, a renowned actor in Hollywood, has been part of iconic films like “Wedding Crashers,” “Zoolander,” and recently, “Marry Me.”
As an actor, Wilson is already on the media’s radar, but fans are also interested in his personal life. Wilson can play almost any role thrown at him, including the role of a father, which he has carried on off-screen.
The “Marry Me” star is a father of three. His firstborn is Ford, now 12 years old, his second son is Finn, 9, and he has a four-year-old daughter, Lyla.
Wilson shares his eldest son, Ford, with his ex-girlfriend Jade Duell, whom he broke up with shortly after the birth of their son. He shares Finn with Caroline Lindqvist, and their relationship was on and off until they decided to cut ties permanently.
The actor met Duell, who worked as a police officer and as a federal air marshall while filming “How Do You Know?.” The two were on a flight from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. when their romance sparked, but it was short-lived.
Wilson reportedly met Lindqvist when she was still married to Ritu Chopra. Lindqvist was his trainer, from way back in 2003, even before she was with Chopra. They have been successfully co-parenting their nine-year-old since they welcomed him.
The actor has fully embraced being a single father; he lives close to his children’s mothers so he can be with the boys as often as possible. He is also always open about his parenting experiences.
Once, he told a funny story of how his sons gang up on him like teenagers. He was busy clipping off one of his son’s fingernails, and the boy worried his father would cut too deep, but Wilson kept telling him to relax.
Once he was done, Wilson wanted to be shown a bit of appreciation, so he asked, “What do you say?” and his son said, “Thank you,” looked at his brother, and murmured, “for nothing.”
As an actor, Wilson is often at the forefront of telling stories written for him, but while that is his passion, he said the highlight of his day is when he tells his own made-up stories to his boys before bed.
He admitted that seeing them excited about his stories makes him proud. Additionally, the details he thought to be insignificant fascinate his kids the most, so bedtime tales have taught him many lessons in storytelling.
Wilson said one of his stories was based on a post-apocalyptic world, with a pack of boys and dogs navigating this world. One of the parts his son loves is when one of the boys thought he saw a girl he liked holding hands with another guy; in actuality, they were playing a game called “yee-hands.”
This is a game where one person puts their hands out, and the other tries to slap the top as quickly as possible. So, just as the boy and girl’s hands meet, the other guy looks over. This was the detail that Wilson’s son thought was a great touch to the already exciting story.
From the sound of things, Wilson seems like a laid-back father, but when he was on “The Jimmy Kimmel Show,” he said he is pretty strict regarding manners but not to the extreme. However, he did admit that he was a bit old-fashioned and has thrown the words “My house, my rules” around a lot.
Wilson has two brothers and often speaks about how competitive they are, so he was asked if his boys were the same. He revealed to Kimmel that Finn, who was three then, would often copy everything his older brother did.
Wilson added that he hoped that they compete over more important things like getting good grades and who loved him more.
Wilson also made a stop at the “Ellen Degeneres Show.” The host showed a video of the actor’s son Ford jumping off a diving board. The actor revealed that Ford was a big fan of Jackie Chan and loved trying out many stunts.
The question of whether he was a strict parent came up again. This time Wilson said he was much stricter than his parents, who raised him in the 70s. He is particular about them putting on their safety belts and helmets and ensuring they apply sun cream.
Wilson now has his children on a single-parent schedule, so he has the privilege of seeing every step of their development. The actor also has a healthy relationship with their mothers and provides them with the necessary financial support.
Before becoming a father, Wilson confessed that he was not the person that naturally gravitated to children. He always thought newborns were fragile, but when he got to hold his son Ford for the first time, all the fear went out the window, and he felt ready to face parenthood.
When Ford was a baby, the actor was proud that he had not dropped him yet, but as a toddler that loved stunts, he drove him to the emergency room a few times, and one time he had to get stitches in his head.
As his sons got older, they looked more and more like their father, but when his eldest son was born, Wilson did not see any similarities; he thought babies looked the same in the early stages.
The actor has kept his children out of the spotlight, but he has been seen with Ford in public a few times. Wilson and Ford were photographed riding bikes when they were out having lunch in Malibu in 2014.
While Wilson loves raising his boys, the actor has been slammed on the internet for not being present in his daughter’s life, whom he welcomed in 2018.
Owen Wilson’s Distant Daughter
Wilson and Varunie Vongsvirates had reportedly been seeing each other for five years when she found out she was pregnant, and the actor allegedly requested a paternity test.
It turned out that the actor was indeed the child’s biological father, so Wilson offered to pay child support. However, the actor did not want to be part of his daughter’s life, according to Vongsvirates. In court, Wilson reportedly ticked on the form that he did not want to visit or have custody of the child.
Vongsvirates confessed that in 2018, when Lyla was born, Wilson wasn’t around, and the actor reportedly has not communicated with his ex-lover since their child’s birth.
Another source claimed that the actor knew Vongsvirates was expecting when she was four weeks pregnant. But reports stated that Wilson’s representative declined to comment because the matter was too sensitive.
Some fans have stood up for Wilson’s choice not to connect with his daughter, who sources reveal is a replica of her father with fair skin and blue eyes.
Some believe Wilson was a victim of public shaming and that Vongsvirates was trying to trap him because of his fame, while others supposed Lyla’s mother must be glad she got the fame she wanted out of the situation.
Many think that Wilson should be praised for his law-abiding duties of paying child support. It was even said that the actor had clarified that he did not want another child; therefore, he should not be obligated to do what Vongsvirates expects.
Before the news of the paternity test was released, Vongsvirates had been hinting on her Instagram that she and Wilson were expecting.
She posted a throwback picture of Wilson’s poster from his movie “Father Figures” and captioned it “#fathergigure #tb.”Under that same post, a follower asked if Wilson was the father, and Vongsvirates openly responded, “yes.”
However, Vongsvirates later confessed that she had begged the actor to be part of his daughter’s life but refused. She added, “Lyla needs a father. It’s ironic how [Owen] keeps getting these father roles, he’s playing a father in his new movie, and he’s never met his own daughter.”
Lyla is four years old, but Wilson has reportedly not met her. Despite that, Wilson reportedly pays $25,000 monthly in child support. He also paid $70,000 to cover Vongsvirates’ legal fees and hospital bills and added his daughter to his medical insurance.
Someone who did not hold back from calling out Wilson publicly was talk show host Wendy Williams. She blasted him on air, claiming, “He’s no good.”
Williams did not stop there; she said, “I don’t know how we can see some of his kids’ movies ever again… You’ve got the nerve to play a dad when you’re not even a dad to your newest baby in real life. He’s got a child he’s never met!”
Varunie Vongsvirates and Lyla’s Adventures
In the midst of the commotion surrounding Lyla, Vongsvirates still shares all her daughter’s special moments and milestones on Instagram.
Vongsvirates may have received a lot of backlash about how she handled things with the father of her child, but she has canceled out the noise and continuously shares her motherhood journey on her social media.
Even before her daughter was born, she shared an ultrasound picture revealing she would be named Lyla and that she was counting down the months to meet her.
The mother and daughter had shared several travel experiences from when Lyla was a baby. Vongsvirates posted a picture of her daughter in Mexico wearing the cutest tropical dress.
She shared another adorable image of Lyla in a stroller rocking a pink head wrap and a floral jumpsuit, with the caption, “I love you so much,” and a hashtag of her daughters’ full name, Lyla Aranya Wilson.
Some people in the comments criticized the mother for giving her daughter Wilson’s surname after he made it clear he did not want to have a relationship with her. In contrast, others loved seeing Lyla’s adorable face and sympathized that she was growing up without a father.
The mother and daughter also took an exciting trip to Disney World, and they were also photographed in Hawaii with Lyla wearing a bluecap with ‘aloha’ printed on it. Another sweet picture Vongsvirates shared was of Lyla building a tiny but adorable snowman.
On her third birthday, Vongsvirates called Lyla her “wild child,” and on her fourth birthday celebration, she had a fall-themed party. It was filled with pumpkin decorations, brown balloons to match the fall leaves, and many treats. To finish the look, Lyla fit the theme with orange velvet pants, a white top, and a tiara.