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The death of a child is an unfathomable loss no parent should ever have to experience, but for reasons beyond our knowledge, accidents, illnesses, and terrible circumstances sometimes claim the lives of children, and no one — not famous movie stars or even the President of the United States — is protected from such unpredictable tragedies.
While miscarriage comes with its own stifling grief, the loss of a child who has arrived in the world and grown and developed their own personality and interests and connections with others is nothing short of agonizing. Nick Cannon, whose son Zen passed away from brain cancer in 2021 at 5 months old, shared on the 1-year anniversary of the baby’s death, “Losing a child has to be the heaviest, most dark and depressive experiences that I will never get over.”
Vanessa Bryant expressed a similar sentiment regarding the incomprehensible pain of losing her 13-year-old daughter Gianna and legendary husband Kobe Bryant in a tragic helicopter accident in 2020. “I can’t say that there aren’t days when I feel like I can’t survive to the next,” the mom of four told People. “This pain is unimaginable [but] you just have to get up and push forward.”
From Cannon and Bryant to President Joe Biden, famous figures who’ve experienced the death of a child express the same unimaginable heartache regardless of how old the child was at the time of their passing. In fact, the 46th POTUS lost both his infant daughter in 1972 and his middle-aged son in 2015, and age didn’t make either death easier to cope with. To learn about how these three and more celebrities navigated the heartbreaking grief of losing a child, scroll on.
Alexa PenaVega and Carlos PenaVega announced the tragic stillbirth of their daughter in April 2024.
“There are never the right words to say when it comes to loss. After a beautiful and peaceful delivery our daughter ‘Indy’ was born at rest,” the Spy Kids actress and the Big Time Rush star said on Instagram. “It has been a painful journey. But in pain we have found peace.”
“…This little girl has already changed our lives in so many ways,” they continued. “She was absolutely beautiful. And looked just like daddy. Dark hair and all. Grief has come to us in waves. Moments of feeling absolutely gutted…then moments of feeling blessed by just getting a moment with her.”
“We can’t understand why things like this happen and we may never get those answers,” the couple ended their post. “Indy Rex PenaVega, you completely changed our world…We love you can’t wait to see how many other lives you change.”
Followers flooded the couple’s post with condolences, including Alexa’s Spy Kids costar Daryl Sabara who said, “Love you so so much ❤️.”
Alexa and Carlos are also mom and dad to kids Ocean, Kingston, and Rio.
Jill Duggar Dillard and Derick Dillard also had a tragic stillbirth, losing their daughter Isla Marie in April 2024, four months ahead of her due date.
“💔It is with heavy hearts that we announce the stillbirth of our beautiful baby girl,” the couple said on Instagram. “…From the moment we found out we were pregnant, we couldn’t wait to meet our baby. Isla was much loved from the start, and her 3 big brothers were so excited to introduce her to their world. We appreciate your prayers as we continue to grieve and heal…😭🩷”
Legendary soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo has five living kids. He shares his oldest son, Cristiano, with a previous partner. In July 2017, he welcomed twins Eva and Matteo via surrogate. Just months before their birth, he started dating girlfriend Georgina Rodriguez, and in Nov. 2019, they welcomed baby Alana. Two years later, they shared they had twins on the way.
In April 2022, Ronaldo shared the tragic and heartbreaking news that one of the twins, Angel, had died. “Only the birth of our baby girl [Bella] gives us the strength to live this moment with some hope and happiness,” Ronaldo said at the time.
Later that year, in an emotional interview with Piers Morgan, Ronaldo spoke about coming home with only Bella and having his kids ask, “Where’s the other baby?”
“Of course [I had a conversation with Cristiano] in the day because he’s 12 years old, he knows, understands everything, and I had a nice conversation with him. We cried together in his bedroom,” Ronaldo said.
As for the other kids, he waited longer before telling them.
“After one week I say, ‘Let’s be up front and let’s be honest with the kids, let’s say that, Angel, which is the name, they go to the eaven.’”
“It’s better to say in that way and we start to use that in that way,” he continued. “…It’s part of their lives and I am not gonna lie to my kids…it was a difficult process but in the same way, I become more more father, more friendly with them. They become more close to their Daddy especially me with the Georgina as well.”
Regina King’s son Ian tragically ended his life in 2022. In 2024, she opened up to Good Morning America, saying she still feels “guilt” over her only child’s death.
“When a parent loses a child, you still wonder, ‘What could I have done so that wouldn’t have happened?’” she said.
In the two years since his suicide, she said she’s had time to “just sit with Ian’s choice.”
“I respect and understand that he didn’t want to be here anymore,” the Oscar winner said. “And that’s a hard thing for other people to receive, because they did not live our experience, did not live Ian’s journey.”
She said she was “so angry with God,” constantly asking “Why would that weight [and depression] be given to Ian?” His absence, she said, is “really loud.”
“It’s important to me to honor Ian the totality of who he is — I speak about him in the present, because he is always with me,” she continued. “And the joy and happiness that he gave all of us.”
“…I know that I share this grief with everyone, but no one else is Ian’s mom. Only me. And so it’s mine, and the sadness will never go away. It’ll always be with me.”
Comedian and radio personality Rickey Smily lost his 32-year-old son to a drug overdose. A year after the tragic accident, he opened up to People about grief and why he’s sharing his healing journey in his book, Sideshow.
“When you come up on the one year, it is almost like it’s happening all over again because you’re triggered,” he said. “I was walking through my home like something was going to happen to my son all over again. It was just horrible. My anxiety was completely through the roof.”
Smiley described the experience as part of himself dying and like nothing he had ever felt before, despite his father also dying of a drug overdose. He said it sometimes makes him wish he was dead because the pain is “unbearable.”
“It’s your 32-year-old son that died, but man, you start thinking about your 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12-year-old son,” he continued. “You’re thinking about the birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese, you’re thinking about the kid that slept in the bed with you, that you helped get dressed and brush his teeth. That’s your child. I felt it from top to bottom, inside to outside.”
A little over a year after losing her husband, NBA legend Kobe Bryant, and their 13-year-old daughter Gianna in a January 2020 helicopter crash, Vanessa Bryant opened up about the ongoing process of grieving their tragic loss.
“I can’t say that I’m strong every day,” the mom of four told People. “I can’t say that there aren’t days when I feel like I can’t survive to the next. … This pain is unimaginable [but] you just have to get up and push forward.”
“Kobe and Gigi motivate me to keep going,” she shared, adding, “They inspire me to try harder and be better every day. Their love is unconditional and they motivate me in so many different ways.” Bryant said her three living daughters help her “smile through the pain” and are a source of “strength” as well.
President Joe Biden has faced unfathomable tragedy during his lifetime. In 1972, his wife Neila and their 13-month-old daughter Naomi were killed in a car accident that their sons Beau and Hunter survived. Forty-three years later in 2015, Beau sadly passed away from brain cancer at 46 years old.
In 2012, the then-vice president gave a speech to military families in which he shared his own experience with loss from Neila and Naomi’s deaths four decades prior. Of the ongoing journey of grief, President Biden said, “Just when you think you’re going to make it, you’re driving down the road and you pass a field and you see a flower, and it reminds you. Or you hear a tune on the radio. Or you just look up into the night and, you know, you think, ‘Maybe I’m not going to make it, man.’ Because you feel at that moment the way you felt the day you got the news.”
He added that although grief never really goes away, the weight of loss gets lighter as time passes. “There will come a day, I promise you and your parents, as well, when the thought of your son or daughter or your husband or wife brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will happen,” the dad of four promised.
The 46th POTUS also spoke about coping with the loss of his son during an episode of Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday. “I sometimes find myself — say something about him, and I can’t handle it. I start to break down,” President Biden shared. “So, it’s not like the pain ever goes away. But what I do is I look at my grandson, his son, and I see him. I look at my granddaughter. I see her. And I know he’s still here. I know he’s still with me.”
Nick Cannon’s son Zen, whom he shared with model Alyssa Scott, was devastatingly diagnosed with brain cancer at 2 months old, and he sadly passed away just three months later.
While the loss is tragic, the Love Don’t Cost a Thing actor is grateful for how he and Scott spent Zen’s final days. “We had some beautiful moments,” Cannon shared during an episode of Paramount+’s The Checkup with Dr. David Agus.
“We knew that the transition was coming. It happened a lot faster than we thought, but even that last weekend I kind of knew, ‘This is going to be the last weekend,’” he explained.
“Luckily, we kind of did everything from the sunrise and going to the beach and the sunset,” Cannon said of their last day together. “We said some beautiful prayers and as a family really came together in a very beautiful way. I’m grateful for (those moments), but it was definitely tough to see a child suffering and watching things shut down — it was pretty intense.”
On the first anniversary of the baby’s death, Cannon wrote on Instagram, “I can’t believe it’s been a year already since the toughest day of my life occurred. Such a painful anniversary. Losing a child has to be the heaviest, most dark and depressive experiences that I will never get over.” He added, “Continue to Peacefully Rest My Son, Zen Scott Cannon. We Love you Eternally ❤️🩹🙏🏾”
After losing their 19-month-old daughter Emeline due to an accidental pool drowning, Olympic skier Bode Miller and his wife, former pro volleyball player Morgan Miller, spoke to Today about finding purpose in their unimaginable loss.
“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t pray for the opportunity to go back to that day and make it different. But now we have this opportunity to make other parents’ days different,” Morgan said. “We have the choice to live our days with purpose, to make sure that no other parent has to feel what we’re feeling.”
She added, “Guilt is a very painful thing. And even though it’s awful and living with it is terrible, and I hope and pray and beg that it gets easier, I am now much more aware [about drowning prevention and water safety] to make sure it doesn’t ever happen again.”
Keanu Reeves’ daughter Ava was sadly stillborn when his former partner Jennifer Syme gave birth to her on Christmas Eve in 1999, and a year later, Syme was shockingly killed in a car accident.
The Matrix actor opened up about the back-to-back losses during a 2006 interview with Parade magazine, per People, explaining, “Grief changes shape, but it never ends. People have a misconception that you can deal with it and say, ‘It’s gone, and I’m better.’ They’re wrong.”
Reeves continued, “When the people you love are gone, you’re alone. I miss being a part of their lives and them being part of mine. I wonder what the present would be like if they were here — what we might have done together. I miss all the great things that will never be,” he vulnerably shared.
Lisa Marie Presley’s son Benjamin Keough heartbreakingly committed suicide in 2020 at 27 years old. In a first-person essay published by People in 2022 for National Grief Awareness Day, Presley wrote, “Grief does not stop or go away in any sense, a year, or years after the loss.”
She continued, “Grief is something you will have to carry with you for the rest of your life, in spite of what certain people or our culture wants us to believe. You do not ‘get over it, you do not ‘move on,’ period.”
The mom of four candidly stated, “My and my three daughters’ lives as we knew it were completely detonated and destroyed by his death. We live in this every. Single. Day.” Presley chillingly concluded, “Just know after this day passes, for all your friends who have had a loved one die, every day is grief awareness day.”
Kelly Preston and John Travolta’s son Jett tragically passed away at 16 years old after suffering a seizure and hitting his head on a bathtub. Although neither Preston nor Travolta publically spoke much about Jett’s death, the Grease icon said during a 2016 appearance on Good Morning America that having their son Ben, whom they welcomed after Jett’s passing, “has been a beautiful kind of glue for us to rebound after a tremendous loss.”
Sylvester Stallone’s son Sage died at 36 years old from an accidental drug overdose. The Rocky icon opened up about the tragedy during a 2012 appearance on Good Morning America, per The Hollywood Reporter, during which he pragmatically said, “It’s a horrible situation, but time hopefully will heal, and you try to get through it, but it’s just something that’s a reality of life.”
Stallone added, “It’s important to get back and try to start reliving your life, otherwise you can go into a spiral.”
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