A Guide to Liv and Steven Tyler’s Family Controversy
Steven Tyler’s relationship with daughter Liv Tyler has taken some serious twists and turns over the years.
Initially, Liv’s mother, model Bebe Buell, led her to believe that another rock legend, Todd Rundgren, was her biological father because of her fear over Steven’s admitted drug use in the late 1970s.
Liv eventually learned the truth and forged a bond with Steven after he’d reached out to reconnect with her mother. Liv later discovered she had a half-sister, Mia Tyler — from Steven’s marriage to model Cyrinda Foxe — when the two girls met at a Guns N’ Roses and Aerosmith concert during their preteen years.
Along the way, the Tyler family has opened up about their unique bond and the unusual circumstances around Liv’s birth.
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Keep scrolling for a look back at what Steven and Liv have said about their relationship over the years:
1977
Liv was born on July 1, 1977, but her mother, Buell, told fellow rocker Rundgren he was the newborn’s biological dad. Rundgren signed Liv’s birth certificate and was a father figure during her upbringing.
1978
Steven tied the knot with first wife, model Foxe, in 1978. They welcomed daughter Mia in December 1978, just over a year after Liv’s birth.
Steven and Foxe divorced in 1987.
Late 1980s
In a 2008 Daily Telegraph profile, Liv detailed how she came to realize Steven was her biological father. She first met the Aerosmith rocker when she was “8 or 9” after a newly sober Steven reached out to her mom to make amends.
When he attended one of Rundgren’s concerts sometime later, Liv noticed she shared physical similarities with Steven. She confronted her mother, and Buell confirmed that Steven was indeed Liv’s biological father.
“I have more empathy for my parents now,” she said in 2008. “As a child I didn’t understand why that would happen, how that could happen. Everybody had a different interpretation [of the situation] and how they participated. And you know what — I’m OK with that. All that matters is whatever kind of relationship I can have with them now.”
In his memoir, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?: A Rock ‘n’ Roll Memoir, Tyler wrote that he first learned of Liv’s existence around “Christmas of 1980.” The musician reunited with Buell before a Portland, Maine, concert during a period where he was still struggling with his sobriety.
“She’d gotten pregnant in Germany and we’d somehow broken up after the tour,” he clarified. “I guess I was in denial about it being my child, and she’d had just about enough of me and decided Todd Rundgren would be a better father. Bebe showed me pictures of baby Liv and we both cried before I went on.”
1992
Liv’s burgeoning modeling career was profiled by Entertainment Tonight when she was 14 years old. The young model revealed she briefly considered following in dad Steven’s musical footsteps after their meeting a few years earlier.
“When I was younger, I wanted to be a rock star,” she admitted. “It ended when I saw how horrible the business was. Not horrible, but I saw what happened to my father with drugs and I saw what a lot of people went through.”
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Instead, Liv convinced her mother to help her get into the modeling industry. Buell was a model herself, having posed for Playboy in 1974 and appearing in campaigns for renowned industry executive Eileen Ford.
In her ET profile, Liv joked that Steven was having difficulty keeping up with his daughter’s modeling career.
“He said, ‘The tables are turning now,’” she teased. “We were on the phone the other night and he was saying, ‘I can’t believe it! I can never find you!’ He said, ‘It used to be you [were] looking for me everywhere and now it’s the other way around. I’m always looking for you!’”
1993
At age 16, Liv was cast opposite future Clueless star Alicia Silverstone, also 16 at the time, in the music video for Aerosmith’s hit single “Crazy.” Surprisingly, Liv wasn’t solely cast based on her connection to Steven, as the music video’s director, Marty Callner, had independently spotted her in a Pantene commercial.
“[The director] went to my dad and asked for permission,” Liv recalled in a 2019 interview on SiriusXM.
The “Crazy” video depicts the two as high school friends skipping school for a Thelma & Louise–style road trip. Liv reflected on the whirlwind success of “Crazy” during her 2019 radio interview.
“It was nuts because I would get up for school and put MTV on in the morning, and there was the countdown and the video would come on and I’d get really nervous,” she recalled.
1994
Steven called himself “a realist” as a father while speaking to Rolling Stone about the blunt tactic he’d used when talking to his then-teenage daughters, Liv and Mia, about sex.
“You can teach your children well and hope you’ve taught them some good sense. When I was a kid there was no AIDS. Now there is. ‘AIDS will kill you. You gotta be aware. Take this rubber,’” he said. “I had a long talk with Liv and Mia about it. They were 15. I said, ‘What’s goin’ on?’ They told me things that they never told anybody else. And I thought that was great because I’m open with sexuality. I told them stuff I got caught up on, how the moment that you come you’re in such bliss that you could suck the chrome off a tow hitch. I told my daughters that stuff.”
Steven said he warned his daughters, “You still want to flaunt it? Flaunt it. But if you lift your skirt, every little boy’s tongue’s gonna want to be up there. And if you smoke pot, know that it can lead to heroin like it did with me.”
“There are some commercials that throw me for a loop. A father can’t talk to his daughter about sex,” he continued. “To me, that is the farthest thing from reality. They really go through that joke — ‘Ask your mother.’ That is exactly why your daughter went out and got pregnant. You didn’t talk about it. It’s as clear as the balls on a tall dog.”
2015
During an appearance on The Jonathan Ross Show, Liv shed new light on what life was like before her discovery about her biological father.
“My mother was very young when she had me and there was a little bit of confusion about where I came from,” she explained to host Jonathan Ross. “I was very loved and very well taken care of by all of my family, which was wonderful.”
A fortuitous meeting between Liv and Steven’s daughter Mia — who was born during his 9-year marriage to Foxe — helped her realize that they must be related.
She went on, “I kind of figured it out [that Steven is my father] because he looks exactly like me and I have sister, named Mia, who is a year younger than me. I saw her, standing on the side of the stage at a concert, and literally, it was like looking at a twin. She looked exactly like me.”
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“I looked at my mom and she had tears in her eyes. I kind of put it all together,” she added.
Liv lamented that Rundgren often wasn’t publicly given the credit he deserved for being an “amazing” father figure.
“People only ever talk about Steven and they always tell all of these stories,” she complained. “But [Todd] has been such a beautiful, wonderful influence in my life.”
2017
Liv took part in the genealogy docuseries Who Do You Think You Are? in 2017, where she uncovered deep musical roots within her family.
Through her search, Liv discovered that Steven’s great-great-great-great-grandfather Robert Elliott Sr., was an army drummer during the War of 1812, and then Robert’s son became a drummer during the Civil War. This revelation was particularly meaningful for Steven because he too started out as a drummer before switching to vocals.
“I’m so loving this,” Steven told his daughter. “It explains it. This is the best.”
2019
Liv briefly hesitated on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen when asked by a caller about “the most embarrassing thing” Steven had ever done in front of her.
“I’m used to both of my parents being such wild, eccentric people but sometimes they say things that are so cringey,” she declared.
The Armageddon actress eventually admitted that Steven had once made a romantic pass at her close friend Cameron Diaz.
“He was definitely flirting with her,” Liv confirmed, before teasing, “Usually, I’m just telling him that his trousers are too tight around the package. He wears a thong sometimes under his costumes! That’s a bit weird.”
Liv went on to say, “One time … I was in the car with five friends and in came my dad, ass-first. He took his trousers off, sat his butt on a towel, someone pulled [the pants] off, they were wet or something, and there was maybe a leopard [print] thong.”
2020
Liv bonded with her father when she made her singing debut with the classic Emmylou Harris track “Til I Gain Control Again” on an episode of her Fox series 9-1-1: Lone Star. The episode revolved around Liv’s character, paramedic Michelle Blake, rediscovering her passion for singing after the disappearance of her sister.
“[Steven] listened and he said he cried. He was on the plane, taking off when he heard it,” she revealed on The Kelly Clarkson Show.
2025
Appearing on the “Sibling Revelry” podcast with Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson, Liv spoke in depth about her two father figures. She acknowledged that Rundgren struggled for many years after learning he wasn’t her biological dad.
“I think it’s probably still very hard and painful,” Liv said. “I don’t speak to him enough, I love him and I have brothers from him and I had a whole family with them. But I was a kid, so it was really hard because he was mad at my mom and then suddenly Steven was there and we did a paternity test and it was positive and so we moved to New York. I think I was 11 or 12.”
She continued, “He took care of me as, like, he was dad … I felt so much love. I was able to soak up the love that I could.”
Liv mentioned that she “grew up the same way” as sister Mia despite not knowing about one another. The sisters eventually met backstage at an Aerosmith and Guns N’ Roses concert as preteens.
“I just remembered standing there, watching [Guns N’ Roses] play, looking and seeing this girl who looked exactly like me. We literally had the same outfit on,” Liv said. “I looked at my mom. … She just started crying. My mom just, like, bawled.”
Reflecting on her unusual background, Liv grew emotional as she clarified, “I think as the story goes, [my mom] called Todd and said she was pregnant. He asked her to come home to where they lived in Woodstock in upstate New York. Basically, he very courageously and lovingly said, ‘This child needs a father, and I will be the father.’”
“This is where it all gets a little bit confusing because I think there was sort of an agreement that maybe I would never know [about Steven] or maybe I would have to be 18. Then that was broken,” she said.
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