Considering he was raised to believe that his grandparents were his parents and that his mother was his sister, Jack Nicholson could be forgiven for having a loose sense of family. The three-time Academy Award winner had his first child, Jennifer Nicholson, in 1963 (with wife Sandra Knight), another daughter with girlfriend Winnie Hollman in 1981, and two more children with actress Rebecca Broussard in the 1990s. The older of those two, Lorraine Nicholson, went into the family business and stars in Soul Surfer, the Bethany Hamilton biopic, opening April 8.
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When Kevin Federline left his pregnant girlfriend Shar Jackson (with whom he already had one child) for Britney Spears in 2004, he didn't exactly seem like Father of the Year material. But in his subsequent marriage and divorce from Spears—which produced two sons—K-Fed showed that he was actually a responsible parent. (In 2008, a judge awarded him full custody of the boys and ordered Spears to pay Federline $20,000 a month in child support.) Then, oops, he did it again—Federline announced last week that his girlfriend, ex-volleyball player Victoria Prince, was pregnant with his fifth child. And how did Shar Jackson take the news? "If it's true," she told UsMagazine.com , "best wishes!"
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Charlie Sheen doesn't just date women in their twenties—he's a father to one. When the tiger-blooded Warlock was just 19, he had a daughter, Cassandra Estevez, with his high-school sweetheart. Second wife Denise Richards gave him two more daughters, Sam and Lola, while the third Mrs. Sheen, Brooke Mueller, bore him twin sons in 2009. When asked about her father's recent troubles, Cassandra—whom Charlie walked down the aisle in 2010— said diplomatically: "I love my dad is really all I can say right now. This is not my time to come forward. Someday I will, but not now."
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Of all the names that Sean Combs has given himself—Puffy, P. Diddy—he's never thought to go with the obvious: Prolific Daddy. The 41-year-old rapper and music mogul had his first child, Justin, in 1993 with his high-school girlfriend. (Justin, who was featured in MTV's My Super Sweet 16, received a $360,000 Maybach for his 16th birthday—and a driver.) Combs also has three children with longtime girlfriend Kim Porter—and is an active stepfather to Porter's son with singer Al B. Sure)—and in October 2007 accepted legal responsibility for his daughter with Sarah Chapman after DNA tests proved he was her father. "At first, I wasn't sure if this was my child," Combs said. "Now that it has become clear she is, I will take care of her for the rest of her life."
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For a man who already had three children from his first marriage and a son by a girlfriend, it seems odd that Kevin Costner was afraid of walking down the aisle again because of kids. "For years, fear kept me from marrying Christine," Costner told Parade magazine about his second wife, German model Christine Baumgartner. "Christine wanted a child, but I was afraid I couldn't be an effective father." But the Oscar-winning director got over that phobia, married Baumgartner in 2004, and had three more children: "I don't think you should close off your life from your children," he said in 2008.
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Though he goes by a diminutive moniker, Lil Wayne has put up some big numbers in the baby mama department. The 28-year-old rap star has four children by four different women, including a son by actress Lauren London and another by singer Nivea, who were born less than three months apart. But he's philosophical about such matters: "I don't think what people think should be any concern of anybody's," Lil Wayne told MTV News. "It's definitely not a concern of mine. I'd be crazy if it was and you're crazy if you are. But that goes back to me not caring about what people think or say. They wanna be [baby mama] number five, six, and seven, so…"
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Million-dollar baby? Try seven. The
80-year-old Oscar winner has fathered children with five different women over the past 47 years—and six of those kids, including Alison Eastwood and Kyle Eastwood, have appeared in dad's films. (The seventh,
Kathryn Eastwood was Miss Golden Globes in 2005.) In 2004, Steve Kroft interviewed Eastwood for
60 Minutes and tried to get him to talk about his unconventional fatherhood, but the famously laconic actor brushed him off, saying, "I like kids a lot."
In 1978, Rod Stewart asked the musical question: "Do ya think I'm sexy?" Well, 33 years, eight children, and five baby mamas later, Stewart probably knows the answer. While model and actress Kimberly Stewart is the best known of Rod's brood, he was only recently reunited with his oldest child after 46 years. In 1964, 17-year-old Stewart put his baby daughter up for adoption because he and his girlfriend were penniless. Sarah Streeter only learned of her famous father when she was in her twenties, and the two reunited last year after Streeter's adoptive parents died. "I never was angry about what happened really, just sad," she told The Daily Mail. "But now I'm older I see things differently and realize that it has been as difficult for him over the years as it has been for me. Now we're at the start of a new chapter, and that's wonderful."
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New York Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie is two children and three baby mamas away from being able to field his own football team. What makes Cromartie's numbers even more impressive is that he's fathered children in six different states by the age of 26. His off-field activities have also led to several paternity suits, causing the Jets to front him $500,000 to pay back child support. But last summer, Cro showed signs of slowing down: He wed girlfriend Terricka Cason (of E!'s reality show Candy Girls), and told ESPN: "Marriage makes me think more of my family and providing for my family… I have a great, supporting wife. She's by my side, day in, day out. I've learned that you need a supporting cast in life."
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No woman, no cry? Obviously Bob Marley was not speaking from experience. The reggae legend's website officially acknowledges 11 children by eight different ladies (including several by his wife, Rita), but others claim to be his offspring. Several Marley kids have become musicians themselves—most famously Grammy-winning Ziggy Marley, whose new comic, Marijuanaman, will be released on—when else?—4/20.
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Though not nearly as famous as some of the other Baby Mama All Stars, Desmond Hatchett has made a name for himself by fathering 20 (and possibly 21) children by 11 different women—and he's only 29. Hatchett, who lives in Knoxville, Tennessee told a local TV station that he had "four kids in the same year—twice," and claims to know all their names, ages, and birthdays. And perhaps because he can't afford all the child support—some women only get $1.98 a month from him—Hatchett now says, "I'm done. I didn't intend to have this many. It just happened."
When Genghis Khan wasn't busy on the field of battle, he was quite the swordsman in the bedroom. His romantic conquests were so prolific that in 2007, Russian scientists estimated that the father of Mongolian democracy had an astonishing 16 million male descendants living today. Doing a little backward math, that means Genghis had hundreds and perhaps thousands of children in his lifetime, with hundreds of women. And he passed on a little of that legendary libido to his oldest son, Tushi, who had a mere 40 sons.
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