Rob Lowe's Son John Is All Grown Up And Has His Dad's Eyes
When Rob Lowe's youngest son, John Owen Lowe, was 13, Rob told The Guardian he was concerned that someday he and his older brother, Matthew Lowe, would start avoiding their dear ol' dad like Rob's "Parks and Recreation" character, Chris Traeger, avoids cheeseburgers. "There's going to come a time when they're not going to want to wrestle with me, and all of those things, so I really, really grab it while I can take it," he said.
John and Matthew's mom is Sheryl Berkoff, who worked as a makeup artist when she met Rob. She and the actor married in 1991. In an interview with Men's Health, John revealed that his relationship with his parents is pretty typical. "Your parents, no matter who they are, always just bug you. Always. Even when you're an adult," he said. But one thing about John's dad that bugged him growing up wasn't an issue most kids have to be concerned about — feeling like people in his orbit only acknowledged his existence because his father is famous. "The number of times I got compared to my dad, and the number of times he was brought up in conversation, made me so uncomfortable that I wanted to move as far away from that as possible," he said. Instead, he did the exact opposite. In fact, Rob and John spend so much time together that Rob told People he sometimes forgets they're related — even though they share the same piercing blue eyes.
The Lowes' relationship inspired their Netflix series
Rob Lowe's son has undoubtedly inherited his father's most striking feature — those beautiful, mesmerizing blue eyes. However, they have more in common than just their genes.
John Owen Lowe was once determined not to foray his nepo baby status into a career in showbiz. Per The New York Times, he even studied science technology at Stanford. But it didn't scratch his creative itch, and by 2015, he was starring alongside his dad in "The Grinder." Of his son's major change of trajectory, Rob quipped to ET, "He was one of the leading interns in stem cell research. Now he's going to be wearing makeup for a living." John also decided to give writing a shot, eventually landing a gig working on the Ryan Murphy anthology "American Horror Story." But because Rob was starring in another of Murphy's shows, "9-1-1: Lonestar," it was decided that it just made logical sense to force the father and son duo to work together, Rob explained on "Late Night with Seth Meyers." John did not enjoy the experience. "I would vent to my manager and agent on a weekly basis and tell them that I wanted to get out of my dad's shadow and they would kind of just laugh at my misery," he told WWD.
But working alongside his dad did give John an idea for a series that explores this father-son dynamic, and now he's basically become his shadow. In addition to co-creating the Netflix series "Unstable," he stars alongside Rob. John plays the son of Rob's character, a narcissistic biotech mogul whose personality is inspired by Rob and Elon Musk.
John Owen Lowe has joked about having a different dad
John Owen Lowe loves trolling his dad. "I've made fun of him my whole life. It's our love language," he told The New York Times. One of his favorite pastimes is leaving snarky comments on Rob Lowe's Instagram posts. In fact, Rob told USA Today that the internet's obsession with the brutal roasting played into their decision to do a show together. "The online heckling had gotten to the point where I could not do an interview, whether it was CNN or Jimmy Fallon, without being asked about it," he said.
One of John's most popular bits is when he pretends that another dark-haired Hollywood heartthrob is his dad: "Full House" star John Stamos. He's shared a shirtless photo of Stamos on the beach and captioned it, "Happy birthday, pops." And he even photoshopped Stamos' face into a family photo for Father's Day in 2022. Stamos once appeared on "The Drew Barrymore Show" to playfully ask John to stop with the dad jokes. "I'm tired of explaining that, no, I'm not really his dad. I'm a better-looking version," Stamos quipped. He also said that he had done a 23andMe test that would prove that John was not his son — but didn't want to read the results aloud when he looked at them. If John ever gets sick of filming "Unstable" with his so-called dad and wants to lobby for a replacement, at least he knows who to call.