Celebs Who Failed Their Adopted Children

Adopting a child is a deeply personal, and at times, painstaking process for both the adoptive parents and the adoptees. Adding in the element of the tabloid spotlight when a celebrity goes through the process can make the whole thing even more stressful. Lots of stars, like Hugh Jackman, Charlize Theron, and Sandra Bullock, successfully navigated these choppy waters and have remained, by all accounts, wonderful parents. Others haven't fared so well. Here are the celebrities who seriously dropped the ball on being adoptive parents.

If you thought Paula Poundstone seemed like a tireless advocate for adoption, go ahead and compare her efforts to Mia Farrow, who has adopted 10 children in addition to her four biological children. Have a seat, Mrs. Brady, right? With a brood that large, things are bound to get complicated, and in the case of Mia and Woody, complicated is just the tip of the iceberg.

In the unlikely event that you haven't heard about how Woody Allen and Mia Farrow's relationship broke up, in part, over his affair with Mia's adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, welcome to Earth. Weird stuff like this happens here. And as if a scandal involving an affair with your girlfriend's adopted daughter wasn't enough, the Allen-Previn clan was only just starting their reign in tabloid headlines.

In 2014, Mia and Woody's adopted daughter, Dylan, accused him of molesting her when she was seven years old. What followed was a nasty media campaign that played out via open letters to one another, like this one and this one, which created a splintering of an already fragmented family as the siblings choose either Team Dylan/Mia or Team Woody. Ronan Farrow, Mia and Woody's only biological son, came out strongly in defense of his mom and sis, while Moses, Mia and Woody's adopted son, insisted that no molestation ever occurred. While prosecutors decided not to bring charges against Woody, the ugliness of the accusation even spread across Hollywood, with actors who've worked with Woody being pulled into the fray by being asked to comment on the situation.

Regardless of what actually happened, it's clear that this complex family tree has splintered in many ways, and neither Woody nor Mia seemed particularly interested in trying to keep the whole thing from playing out in the public eye.

This one is tough, because it involves accusations made by Rosie O'Donnell's adopted daughter, Chelsea, who struggles with mental illness and has even been hospitalized for psychiatric evaluation. Chelsea has thrown a laundry list of complaints at Rosie, alleging everything from Rosie's habitual pot use, to her laziness, to her hands-off approach to parenting, telling The Daily Mail that she was "pretty much raised by nannies." She also claims that Rosie's public pleas for Chelsea's return after Chelsea allegedly ran away when she was 17 were complete bull, and that Rosie had actually kicked her out.

Rosie has been relatively tight-lipped and not exactly sensitive about the situation, tweeting things like "No mom is perfect. We all do our best," and once while addressing a crowd, saying "My teenagers are a nightmare, they're horrible." Not surprisingly, Chelsea chose to move back in with her birth mom soon after the whole "running away" debacle. Chelsea and Rosie have since been spotted together in public, a positive signal that maybe the healing has begun, but it's clear that both of them probably could have done things differently so this wouldn't have gotten so out of hand.

To hear the accounts of the Joan Crawford's parenting as told by her four adopted children is like hearing from kids who grew up in entirely different families. Eldest daughter, Christina, famously characterized her upbringing as nightmarish, describing in both her book and the film of the same name, Mommie Dearest, a terrifying scenario of emotional and physical abuse. Joan's son, Christopher, shared a similar experience with The LA Times, saying "I honestly to this day do not believe that she ever cared for me," as well as accusing Joan, whom he only refers to as "J.C.", of placing his hand into a fireplace until it blistered as a reprimand for playing with matches.

Though Mommie Dearest was published two years after Joan's death, she was aware that Christina was writing it, and what would be revealed, according to the biography Not the Girl Next Door Her (via Vanity Fair). This book sought the other side of the Mommie Dearest story by interviewing both Joan Crawford and her twin daughters Cindy and Cathy, who remain staunchly loyal to their adoptive mom. "We lived in the same house as Christina, but we didn't live in the same home, because she had her own reality. Cindy and I had a different reality—the opposite. I don't know where she got her ideas. Our Mommie was the best mother anyone ever had," Cathy told author Charlotte Chandler.

A known philanthropist and beloved Hollywood figure, Joan Crawford still has defenders who refuse to believe Christina or Matthew, so lingering doubt still hangs over the allegations. Though Joan received support from defenders long after her death in 1977, her will made it crystal clear that her eldest children were to receive nothing: "It is my intention to make no provision herein for my son Christopher or my daughter Christina for reasons which are well known to them." Ice. Cold. We would have left them each a wire hanger, or, you know, not been a parent from Hell in the first place.

Heiress to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, Casey Johnson, led a turbulent life from a very young age. Diagnosed with diabetes at just 8 years old, Casey also had behavioral issues throughout her adolescent life, according to excerpts of the biography, Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal, and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson Dynasty (via The New York Post). She also had borderline personality disorder, and became a wild-child, partying throughout her twenties in swanky Manhattan and L.A. digs before she decided — against protests from basically everyone including her own mother — to adopt a child.

Despite Casey's long history of drug and alcohol abuse, inability to get her mental health under control, and lack of ability to provide for herself when cut off from family funds, she was able to adopt a baby girl from Kazakhstan, whom she named Ava-Monroe. That was in 2007. By late 2009, Ava-Monroe was under the care of Casey's mother, Sale, because Casey had spiraled out of control partying, entering a bizarre and controversial relationship with reality star Tila Tequila, and neglecting her diabetes, which landed her in the hospital. Tragically, she never regained custody of Ava-Monroe, because Casey died of diabetes-related complications in her squalid Hollywood mansion. Ava-Monroe remains in the care of her wealthy grandmother, and she probably has a life of means that most of us can't imagine, but it's frightening to think about what that poor kid was exposed to in the first few years of her life.