How Liv Tyler found out Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler was her biological father

12 August 2024, 14:52

Father-daughter relationships don't come more famous than this.

When Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler introduced his daughter Liv to the world after featuring in several of his band's music videos in the early nineties, their likeness was unmistakable.

Liv starred in the videos for 1993 Aerosmith singles 'Cryin'' and 'Crazy' which put the then-model on the map when it came to pursuing her own career in Hollywood.

Only a matter of years later in 1998, there was a full circle moment when Liv starred as the lead actress alongside Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck in the disaster movie Armageddon.

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Whilst Liv was on the big screen, Steven sang the song's theme song in Aerosmith's epic ballad 'I Don't Want To Miss A Thing'.

Even though Steven himself didn't write the song, it took on a new meaning given the relationship between Liv and her dad shared in their early days.

That's because as a child, Liv was brought up not knowing that Steven Tyler was her biological father.

During the seventies, Steven had a short fling with Playboy model Bebe Buell, who was on a break from her long-term partner in rocker Todd Rundgren.

She fell pregnant shortly after, and Buell kept quiet given Tyler's lifestyle and issues with drug addiction, even after she gave birth to baby Liv.

Buell claimed that Rundgren was the biological father, even after their relationship had ended.

Despite not being together romantically by then, Todd remained committed to raising Liv even though he knew there was a chance he might not be her biological father. And he wasn't.

Regardless, he stepped in to father Liv, signing her birth certificate and giving her his last name, even paying for her to attend a prestigious private school.

Liv realised from an early age that she bore a resemblance to Steven Tyler, having gone to an Aerosmith concert and having seen Tyler's other daughter Mia who he shared with Cyrinda Foxe.

She appeared on The Jonathan Ross Show in 2015 when she discussed the first inkling she had that they were related.

"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.

"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".

Talking to Interview magazine in 1997, Liv revealed she came to a full realisation that Steven was her father at the age of 11, having an epiphany of sorts after looking up at a poster of Aerosmith in her bedroom wall.

"My mom has a diary entry or something where I wrote, 'I think Steven is my father'," she said.

She went on to say that Buell and Rundgren "made a pact that he would be Liv’s father, and if it ever became an issue, we’d tell her at 18."

They never got to that stage anyway, she Liv had already come to her own conclusion. In fact, she said she "fell madly in love" with Steven Tyler despite having "no idea who he was."

"It must be chemical somehow - DNA and genes,” Liv explained to the Guardian in 2017.

"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."

After discovering the truth, the pair began to nurture their budding father-daughter relationship, eventually becoming incredibly close.

From then onwards, Liv began to consider both Steven Tyler and Todd Rundgren as her fathers.

“I’m so grateful to Todd for choosing to be a father figure to me. It’s a big thing for a man to say, ‘I know this kid might not be mine, but I still want to be her father'," she has said.

"Although he and my mom weren’t together, he was always a very stable, loving force in my life."

Liv also feels no ill will towards her mother keeping her father's true identity secret from her throughout her childhood.

"It’s quite an emotional story, honestly, the whole thing. 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."

Steven and Liv's relationship became stronger than ever when he was present for the birth of her second child, Sailor, in 2015.

"I never expected to give birth with my sister and my dad in the room,” she shared in 2017. "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."

Her children love both of their grandfathers too, though she admitted Steven isn't your typical grandfather type.

"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."