Britt Jones
Liv Tyler has opened up about her family tree, specifically her adopted father.
For those of you who do not know, Liv is the biological daughter of Steven Tyler, the Aerosmith frontman, but she didn’t always know this.
The Lord of the Rings star is the daughter of Tyler and Bebe Buell and only realised who her father was after being raised by adoptive dad Todd Rundgren for years.
She explained in an episode of Sibling Revelry with Kate and Oliver Hudson about the moment she knew, and also where it leaves her relationship with her non-biological dad.
Advert
The Armageddon actress shared that her mum revealed to her who her real dad was at an Aerosmith concert when Liv was ‘11 or 12’ after she noticed a very distinct similarity between herself and Steven’s first daughter Mia.
She appeared on The Jonathan Ross Show in 2015 and shared: "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".
Then, in 1997 she spoke to Interview magazine and realised that he had to be her dad when looking at a poster of his band.
"My mom has a diary entry or something where I wrote, 'I think Steven is my father'," she said.
Liv's ‘parents’ ‘made a pact that he would be Liv’s father, and if it ever became an issue, we’d tell her at 18', Buell said.
“The first wave was shock,” Liv shared. “After that concert, we went home and my mom had a chaise lounge in front of a window. I remember sitting there for what felt like three days, but it was probably three hours, and coming to this conclusion of ‘Whoa, I have two dads and all this love.’"
She added: “It was very weird. I felt so much love. I was able to soak up the love that I could.”
But as for how her relationship is with Todd, it’s different.
She shared on the podcast: "It's probably still very hard and painful and I don't speak to him enough. I love him. I have brothers from him and I had a whole family with them. He took care of me like he was [my] dad."
Liv went on to say that Todd had stepped up to become her father during Steven’s drug struggles after dating her mum inconsistently through the 70s.
She explained: “As the story goes, [my mom] called Todd and said she was pregnant and he asked her to come home to where they lived in Woodstock in upstate New York.
“He very courageously and lovingly said, ‘This child needs a father, and I will be the father.’
“It was very cute. I was born Liv Rundgren.”