Liv Tyler's mom and her partner had decided to tell Liv about her biological father only when she turned 18, but fate had something else in mind.
Blood runs thicker than water. For most people, the comfort and feeling of safety they have when they are with family is unparalleled. Sometimes, our connection to them can act in mysterious ways too. For instance, when The Lord of the Rings actress Liv Tyler met her father, Aerosmith's frontman Steven Tyler, the first time she did not know that he was her dad. However, she felt an "energy and sparkle between" their bodies.
"It must be chemical somehow – DNA and genes. I felt a connection in a very strong way when I met him as a little girl and I didn’t know why at first, but I figured it out rather quickly," she told the Guardian.
Liv's parents, her mother, Bebe Buell, a model and singer, and her then-partner, Todd Rundgren, a phenomenal musician, and Steven had made a pact that Rundgren would be Liv's father. However, Liv "had a hunch as early as nine years old, but it wasn’t until August 1988 when she turned 11 that she put it together and confronted [Buell]. It’s not like I could lie to her," Buell told Rolling Stone.
Liv doesn't blame her mother for keeping it from her and instead makes allowances about the fact that she was very young when Liv was born. "It's quite an emotional story, honestly, the whole thing," she said during an episode of The Jonathan Ross Show. "My mother was very young when she had me and there was a little bit of confusion about where I came from but I was very loved and very well taken care of by all my family, which was wonderful."
"I kind of figured it out because he looked exactly like me and I have a sister named Mia who is a year younger than me and I saw her standing at the side of the stage at a concert and I was literally like looking at my twin," the Armageddon actress said.
Mia, the daughter of Steven and his second wife Cyrinda Foxe, was born just 17 months after Liv. "She looked exactly like me and I looked at my mum and she had tears in her eyes and I kind of put it all together," said the Hulk actress.
Now, she considers both the Aerosmith lead singer and Rundgren her fathers. However, Steven has become more involved in her and her children's lives. He is a devoted grandfather to Liv's three kids. She says that her kids are close to all their grandparents but Steven is not like a typical grandfather.
"He's very sweet, it's just so fun for him, for all the grandparents to get to play. He's amazing at making weird noises with his mouth, animal noises, a lot of animal noises! He's very playful and funny and lovely, he's kind of like a magical wizard he has things in his hair and all sorts of jewelry and he's just very fun, not your typical grandfather," she said, according to Hello magazine.
Like a supportive father, he showed up when she went into labor early in 2015. Liv, who is engaged to sports agent/manager and David Bekham's best friend, Dave Gardner, was pregnant with their son, Sailor Gene, at the time. "I never expected to give birth with my sister and my dad in the room. Sailor surprised me and came six weeks early, which was pretty scary. David was on a flight. I called Mia and she came straight to the hospital, and she also called Steven. He walked into the room moments before Sailor was born, and cut his umbilical cord. It was wild," she told the Guardian.
He may have taken an active part in her life later than usual but Steven Tyler made up for his absence, and Liv Tyler loves him for who he is, even though, like most fathers, Steven Tyler too might have a hint of the dad joke gene. And this was apparent in an Instagram post. In 2015, he had shared a photo of his grandson on Instagram in 2015 and joked in the caption, "UH OH MY NEW GRANDSON SAILOR IS SHOWING THE TYLER GENE! OMG @misslivalittle HE'S GOT A MONKEY ON HIS BACK ALREADY... [sic]."
After all, being a rock legend means that he would be an unusual kind of dad. "I mean…he's pretty amazing," Liv told Jimmy Kimmel in an episode, according to MSN. "But as a performer, he doesn't half-ass anything. Like, he really is singing his heart out. So, I'm usually pretty impressed that he's still…but he does things that embarrass me."
References:
https://www.hellomagazine.com/celebrities/2015112728471/liv-tyler-how-she-found-out-steven-was-father/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/celebrity/how-steven-tyler-continues-to-embarrass-daughter-liv/ar-BBZe9G2#interstitial=2
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/bebe-buell-talks-carrying-steven-tyler-home-and-her-secret-bet-with-hugh-hefner-630564/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMtaGoXMUdU
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/feb/17/liv-tyler-actress-meeting-father-partner-young-families
