Filipino families are the best – except when they’re being the worst. Celebrity families are more of the same, usually amplified to 11.

The worst Pinoy family dynamics are extremely toxic and they really come into focus when our local idols happen to be the ones doing them. Let’s take a look at a few examples in hopes that we learn exactly what not to do with our own families, when given a chance.

8. Refusing to accept your kids for who they are: Izzy Trazona vs Andrei Trazona

It’s a bit funny and sad to realize that the Sexbomb Dancers, something Izzy Trazona is still a part of, probably inspired an entire generation of drag queens. That one of them was Izzy’s own child, Andrei, shouldn’t really come as any surprise.

What is a surprise, though, is that instead of being supportive of Andrei, Izzy pretty much rebuked him. Let’s not even get started with the hypocrisy of suddenly playing the religion and morality card while being a charter member of a group called Sexbomb. We all know how hard it is for LGBTQ members to find acceptance in this society. The last thing they need is for their first bully to be their own parents.

What makes this especially toxic is that nearly in every other circumstance, parents would defend their children, no matter how wrong these kids are. How many parents will fight tooth and nail to defend their kids who are literally convicted of murder? Yet, the minute one of them decides to date someone of the same gender, all that unconditional love and support goes away?Wow. #Priorities

7. Utang na loob: Nora Aunor vs. Matet De Leon

Imagine looking at your daughter, who is struggling and doing what they can to make ends meet, as she tries to launch a new small business to help her get through. Now imagine telling that same daughter of yours to drop that business because you happen to have the same thing? If this sounds like you, well, congratulations, Nora Aunor!

Maybe she didn’t spell it out explicitly, but it’s clear where this whole thing stems from: the idea that because a parent raised you, then you owe everything to them, even your own well-being and happiness. In this scenario, it isn’t even the case that Nora Aunor is struggling financially. She doesn’t even have to demand that her kids take care of her in her old age. Despite that, she still finds the time to tell her daughter that she should just drop her new business because “she has a lot of tapings,” even if Matet De Leon decidedly does not.

Really now: at what point does one say that a debt of gratitude is fully repaid? In Filipino culture, it never seems to ever be.

6. Living through your children: Mommy Divina vs Sarah Geronimo

Well. Do we really need to get into this all over again? Long story short, Mommy D helped make Sarah Geronimo arguably the biggest pop star in Philippine history, and when Sarah Geronimo finally decided to live her life and get married, her mom decided that she’s not yet done living through her daughter, and nobody has any idea if they would ever reconcile before it’s too late.

Want to see more of this toxic behavior of controlling every aspect of your children’s lives? Just ask Jake Zyrus about his mom. He’d tell you.

5. Airing Dirty Laundry: Jackie Forster vs Andre and Kobe Paras

You probably wouldn’t see it now, but before they finally reconciled in 2018, the feud between Jackie Forster and her kids, Andre and Kobe, really ran deep. What made the rift between them last for well over a decade mostly stemmed from Jackie’s attempts to patch up the relationship through press interviews instead of just reaching out to her kids privately. It got to a point where in 2013, her kids even called it out as merely “a publicity stunt.”

While airing out dirty laundry isn’t uniquely Pinoy, it’s something toxic families do a lot here. Couple that with the need some other people have of taking things public so they can get support in the middle of a feud that should have stayed strictly in private, and you realize how draining it is for so many people to be dragged into a mess they otherwise had nothing to do with.

4. Ridiculous stalemates: Freddie Aguilar vs. Maegan Aguilar

Neither Freddie Aguilar nor Maegan Aguilar would be remotely considered as role models in 2023, that much is clear. So when two very toxic people end up in a stalemate as drawn out as what’s going on between them, one has to wonder: are they holding out this long because they’re still hoping to figure out whose fault all of this is?

There seems to be this desire that closure has to be nice and clean – that everything can be tied up in a tidy bow, and nothing short of a resolution like that is acceptable.

Except that’s not how things should be. At all. Life is never that clean, much less family dynamics. And considering how awful their situation is all around, maybe it’s best to make amends sooner than later – unless…

3. Never knowing when to call it quits: Anabelle Rama vs. Rufa Gutierrez

The on-again, off-again feud within the Gutierrez clan is legendary, second only to our #1 entry. But what boggles the mind is knowing full well how toxic this dynamic is, isn’t it important to realize that at some point, you just have to cut things off before things get worse? Sure, maybe that’s not how it ought to be for these two, but Filipino families are really terrible about making clean breaks. Even their estranged relationships are filled with a lot of toxicity despite being apart for decades, when going NC would have made things a lot less toxic overall.

“But family is family!” Yes, it is. But like everything, the line has to be drawn somewhere, and we have far too many cases where failing to learn where that line is drawn leads to disaster.

2. Not paying child support: Paolo Contis vs. Xoni, Xylene, and Summer

It’s not like Paolo Contis, a perennial member of the Bubble Gang cast, was particularly wanting for money. Despite that, here we are, and only recently did he finally own up to his neglect of giving financial support to his own kids.

What’s especially egregious about this is how much he likely monetized Summer through his social media posts during the time he was going viral with her. Yet there he goes, still not giving child support to his kids. Do men really have to be the one to give birth for them to realize that they have as much of a duty to their kids as the mom does?

1. Every messed up family dynamic imaginable: The Entire Barretto Clan

The feuds within the Barretto clan from parents to children to sibling to sibling to everything in between are epic and can form an entire list of their own. In fact, the feuds are so frequent and common, nothing short of a timeline can help any of us make heads and tails of it.

Yet while we laugh at the pathos of the Gretchens and Marjories and Claudines of Pinoy showbiz royalty, the ugliness of their family dynamics holds up a mirror to a lot of the toxic habits we also have in our own household – we just don’t have TV networks and Ogie Diaz interviewing us about every single one of them.

If not for anything else, the Barretto clan is the ultimate cautionary tale of how toxic Filipino family dynamics can get. May we learn to never walk their path.

What’s your take on these celebrity family feuds? Tell us what you think in the comments!