Inside Some Of The Biggest Celebrity Sibling Feuds

There are numerous celebrity siblings who enjoy loving, functional relationships that no doubt made their parents proud — think Donny and Marie Osmond, or the three Gibb brothers collectively known as The Bee Gees. Many more examples can be seen in the annals of showbiz lore, from Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal to models Gigi and Bella Hadid. 

Yet there is another category of celebrity siblings, and it's a far more entertaining one: celebrity siblings who can't stand each other. Interestingly enough, there have been numerous examples of that particular type of relationship over the years, with stories recounting the feuds of sibling stars filling the pages of supermarket tabloids for decades.

These examples include not one but several sets of battling rock-star brothers, legendary Hollywood sisters whose simmering feud spanned decades, a pair of princes, and even a beloved movie star who aided the opponent of her Oscar-nominated brother in his nasty custody dispute — over a child who would go on to become a star in her own right. Tea will be spilled, so keep on reading on to find out these famous celebrity sibling beefs.

As fans of Bravo's The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills can attest, the relationship between sisters Kim and Kyle Richards has seen more ups and downs than a seesaw at a preschool playground. Part of this has to do with Kim's longtime struggle with alcohol, which RHOBH viewers first saw when Kyle confronted her in the back of a limo in an infamous 2011 scene. "Kim, you act like an insane person," Kyle tells her clearly intoxicated sister, adding, "I'm so sick of your crap, everybody is, everybody's sick of what you put us through."

Kim was still having issues in 2015, when she was arrested and "cited for public intoxication, trespassing, resisting an officer and battery on a police officer," according People.

In 2019, Hollywood Life reported that Kyle reached out in an attempt to end their estrangement after what Us Weekly reported as a "downward spiral" that led Kim to "a brief visit to the emergency room at UCLA." That conversation didn't go well. "[Kim] felt Kyle's words came out harsh and that Kyle was overstepping her boundaries and [was] out of line," said a source, claiming the talk escalated to "a heated argument." Kyle, according to the source, was simply "trying to help and let Kim know that she's here for her." 

When it comes to rock-star sibling rivalry, the undisputed all-time champions have to be Ray and Dave Davies of The Kinks, who've been riffing and roughhousing since the 1960s — and certainly didn't keep it to themselves. As Ultimate Classic Rock recalled, the band members' onstage brawls ultimately led to a four-year ban in America.

"About a year ago we hated the sight of each other," Dave Davies told New Musical Express of Ray back in 1966, via UCR. "We would fly into a temper at the slightest provocation. I suppose, in a way, it was only natural when we spent so much time together." In another quote cited by Ultimate Classic Rock, Ray acknowledged he was not blameless. "Dave has his problems with me sometimes, but that's inevitable," he said, adding, "I'm not an easy person to work with." 

By 2014, Dave was singing a different tune, telling the Independent that his "love has always been relentlessly directed towards [Ray]." The following year, however, that sentiment wasn't quite so apparent. Dave told the Daily Mail of a childhood incident that he said was "symbolic of [the brothers'] whole relationship." During an impromptu boxing match, Dave knocked Ray into a piano, leaving him "seemingly unconscious." When Dave leaned in to check on him, "Ray bolted upright and punched [Dave] hard in the face." Dave recalled to the tab, "I felt the pleasure that I'd knocked him over, then concern that I'd hurt him. But all he really wanted was to get back at me." 

When Christoher Ciccone wrote a tell-all book about sister Madonna Louise Ciccone aka Madonna, it created a rift that lasted for the better part of a decade. Madonna reportedly felt betrayed by the book, c, which provided a detailed account of her wedding to Guy Richie — an event she went to great lengths to keep private. In an excerpt published by the Daily Mail, he writes of her "bullying behavior," and includes a scorched-earth fax he sent the "evil queen" complaining of years spent "listening to your b*tching, egotistical rantings, mediocre talent and a lack of taste that would stun the ages." Speaking to CBS News, Christopher said, "Some may consider it betrayal of some kind, I consider it my memoirs. I can't tell my story without telling hers. Our lives are completely intertwined." 

In 2017, Christopher told The Sun (via Page Six) that he and his sister were starting to bridge the divide. "We've gotten past that, we talk," he said, but added, "I do know Madonna likes to hold grudges." In 2019, the hatchet was buried. "We are at peace now and just spoke last week," Christopher told R Online, adding, "Madonna has been great!" 

Two-time Oscar winner Olivia de Havilland, who died in July 2020 at age 104, was as famous for her movies as she was for her contentious relationship with her sister, fellow movie star Joan Fontaine. According to Biography, the sisters' animosity sparked in childhood and continued throughout their lives. Speaking with People about her 1978 memoir No Bed of Roses, Fontaine sniped, "I regret that I remember not one act of kindness from Olivia all through my childhood... You can divorce your sister as well as your husbands. I don't see her at all and I don't intend to."

A few years after Fontaine's 2013 death, de Havilland told the Associated Press that she bore no responsibility for the bad blood with her sister, despite the fact that she confessed to having taken to calling Fontaine "Dragon Lady." "On my part, it was always loving," she insisted, "but sometimes estranged and, in the later years, severed." She also refused to categorize what took place as a feud. "A feud implies continuing hostile conduct between two parties. I cannot think of a single instance wherein I initiated hostile behavior," de Havilland said, adding, "But I can think of many occasions where my reaction to deliberately inconsiderate behavior was defensive."

When it came to newspaper advice, two syndicated columnists ruled the roost: Abigail Van Buren, who penned Dear Abby, and Ann Landers, who wrote Ask Ann Landers. Their readers, however, may not have realized that those weren't their real names — and that the two were twin sisters, Esther "Eppie" Lederer (Ann) and Pauline Phillips (Abby), born 17 minutes apart. 

Eppie, reported The New York Times Magazine, entered the game when she was hired to take over a Chicago newspaper's existing Ask Ann Landers column. Facing a huge backlog of letters, Eppie asked her sister to help craft answers, until her editor told her she could no longer farm out the work. Miffed, Pauline got her revenge by launching her own competing column for another newspaper, Dear Abby. According to Pauline's daughter, Jeanne Phillips, Eppie was devastated. "She didn't talk to her for about 10 years," said Phillips. 

While the sisters eventually reconciled, the bad blood passed down to their daughters, who both took over their mothers' respective columns after their deaths. Margo Howard — Eppie's daughter, admitted that "the rivalry went into the next generation with Jeanne and I."

The Jackson 5 gave us enduring its, including "ABC," "I Want You Back," and "I'll Be There." But from the family band, only one superstar emerged: the "King of Pop," Michael Jackson. The way Michael skyrocketed to fame above his siblings reportedly left older brother, Jermaine Jackson, consumed with jealousy. Close family friend Stacy Brown revealed in a New York Post article that not only was Jermaine fixated on Michael's fame, he would profess that he should have been the one moonwalking on stage in Michael's shoes. "We had plans. But once Michael beat me to it, he made sure it would only be him," Jermaine reportedly complained.

Over the years, Jermaine denied any feuding with Michael, and even frequently defended his embattled brother. In 1991, however, Jermaine fired a clear shot with his a single, "Word to the Badd!!," which he admitted was dig at his brother's changing appearance. Celebrity Tantrums: The Official Dirt author Lisa Brandt reported that Jermaine's ex-wife confessed the track "was his jealous response to producers who abandoned his recording to work with Michael instead." Mega-producer LA Reid confirmed in his own memoir, Sing To Me, that the track did, indeed, cause a huge blowout between the brothers. Per Showbiz 411, Reid claimed that after Michael agreed to let Jermaine release the track, "two days later, the record disappeared off the air." He added, "I don't know if Michael did anything, but it went away in a flash."

The alleged rivalry between Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Caroline 'Lee' Radziwill is detailed in Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger's book, The Fabulous Bouvier Sisters: The Tragic and Glamorous Lives of Jackie and Lee. According to excerpts in the Daily Mail, the acrimony started when Jackie married John F. Kennedy, leaving Lee in the shadows.

The sisters' complicated relationship manifested as a lifelong battle for social status. As Jackie lived a life as first lady, Lee divorced her first husband, Michael Temple Canfield, and married Polish aristocrat Stanislaw "Stas" Radziwill, making her a princess in the process and "for once ... [feeling] like she had trumped her sister," as the Daily Mail surmised. Their feuding continued after JFK's assassination, however, when Jackie reportedly schemed to get close to Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, a man with whom Lee was close friends and allegedly "deeply" in love, as gossip writer Truman Capote reportedly claimed (via Daily Mail).

Lee spoke with Vanity Fair in 2016 to reluctantly discuss the fraught sisterhood, telling the outlet she was "sick of" stories about the subject, however, she did reveal that when Jackie and Aristotle got engaged, she didn't hear about it from her sister. "[Aristotle] told me," Lee said, adding, "He begged me to come to the wedding." Although Lee publicly put a positive spin on the entire affair, Vanity Fair claimed the marriage "was a staggering blow from which their relationship would never completely recover."