Celebrity dads simply don't get enough credit. Of course, as moms, we'd say that we deserve most of the praise (duh), but there are a lot of famous fathers out there who are helping turn their little ones into awesome humans — and cracking jokes that keep us laughing along the way.
Being a parent isn't always easy, whether you're famous or not (though having a bit of extra money certainly helps). In the beginning, we're all totally clueless about how to care for newborns until we do it, and every day is an adventure after that. It's stressful and exhausting, but there's humor to be found in all of the missteps and accomplishments (both big and small) along the way.
In honor of Father's Day, here are the funniest quotes from celebrity dads who are always willing to get brutally honest about what raising kids is actually like. From Ryan Reynolds to George Clooney, these famous dads are doing their best and keeping their sense of humor — no matter what parenthood throws their way.
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Chris Martin
On the subject of raising babies, Chris Martin — who has two children with ex-wife Gwyneth Paltrow — once said in an interview with Blender: "Men should always change diapers. It's a very rewarding experience. It's mentally cleansing. It's like washing dishes, but imagine if the dishes were your kids, so you really love the dishes."
Ryan Reynolds
Is there a parent alive who hasn't seen Frozen far too many times? Ryan Reynolds — who has four daughters with wife Blake Lively — is always giving us his funny takes on fatherhood via Twitter, and this is definitely one of his more relatable messages.
Jim Gaffigan
"Raising kids may be a thankless job with ridiculous hours, but at least the pay sucks," said comedian Jim Gaffigan. That pretty much sums it all up — and since Jim and his wife, Jeannie Gaffigan, have five children together (Jack, Marre, Katie Louise, Michael, and Patrick), he would definitely know!
Will Arnett
Will Arnett has three children: sons Archie and Abel with ex-wife Amy Poehler, along with another son, Alexander, with partner Alessandra Brawn. And when it comes to raising boys, Will is spot on.
"I want my son to wear a helmet 24 hours a day," he told PopEater. "If it was socially acceptable, I'd be the first one to have my kid in a full helmet and like a cage across his face mask. I make my wife crazy with it because I'm constantly worrying, just because I know what an idiot I was when I was little."
Jon Stewart
When the time comes to take the pacifier away, it's never an easy transition. But Jon Stewart, who has two teenagers, Nathan and Maggie, had it mastered back in his kids' baby days.
"This might not be the best way to do it, but we have him now just starting on cigarettes," he said. "We feel like, you do that and then the pacifier, at a certain point, he might think, 'Well if I can't light it, I don't want it.'"
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Dax Shepard
Dax Shepard once tweeted, "I rescind my early statement, 'I could never fall in love with a girl who regularly poops her pants' (I hadn't met my daughter yet)."
Having kids makes us rethink a lot of our previous positions on certain topics — including bodily functions. Since Dax tweeted this funny message in 2013, he and wife Kristen Bell have welcomed another daughter, and now they have two: Lincoln and Delta. We have a feeling he still felt the same way about his second baby, though.
Seth Meyers
Seth, who has two sons, Axel and Ashe, admitted during an appearance on the Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon that he changed the way he felt about kids after he had some himself.
"So embarrassing how I went from a person who did not care about anyone's children, ever … and then you have them, and you brag about the same stuff that you never cared about," he said. "You tell people 'He's got four teeth,' like they'd care. No one cares until you have a kid and then you say, 'Oh my God that's great, four ― mine has eight.'"
Justin Timberlake
These days, Justin Timberlake and wife Jessica Biel have two sons, Silas and Phineas, but when Silas was still a toddler, Justin told Beats 1 Radio that he had "never felt more inept in my life."
"My 3-year-old's already running our house," he said at the time. "My wife and I, when we have a night off and we get him to bed and we sit down and watch a movie or something, we're like, 'What did we do before this? Did we go out to dinner? Were we at a bar? What did we do before this?'"
Jordan Peele
Jordan Peele isn't just a comedian and director — he's also a dad to son Beaumont Gino with wife Chelsea Peretti. And before Beaumont was born, he told USA Today what he was stressing about most when it came to fatherhood.
"Kids are creepy," he said. "What happens if I wake up in the middle of the night, look over and my child is standing in the doorway? Do I run? Which direction do I run? Toward it? Away from it?"
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George Clooney
When George Clooney first became a dad to twins Alexander and Ella with wife Amal, he told the Daily Mail that for him, fatherhood involved a lot of crying.
"I cry more than they do," he said. "I cry four times a day right now because I’m so tired. Hey, remember back when you were single, before you didn't have to worry about keeping people alive? Wasn't that great?"
John Legend
Though John Legend and Chrissy Teigen's kids, Luna and Miles, have two of the most famous parents ever, as John told ET, they actually are totally oblivious to it.
"She has no idea," John said of Luna after she met Stevie Wonder. "She doesn't know that we are famous, she doesn't know Stevie Wonder is famous. It's like, 'Who are you?'"
Will Smith
Teenagers are no joke, and Will Smith — who has raised three of them — knows all about it. He even called them "an affliction" during an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show.
"Teenagers should be an affliction," he said. "Like, 'Hey, Will, how you doin?' 'Man, I got teenagers. Simplex 2, man, simplex 2.' It takes everything you have to raise teenagers."
Ken Jennings
"Booking plane tickets for a family trip is a fun little test to see if I still remember all my kids' birthdays and genders," Ken Jennings once tweeted.
Not even this Jeopardy champ knows everything! Ken is a dad to two children with wife Mindy Jennings — Caitlin and Dylan. And keeping those birthdays straight can definitely be a challenge when the time comes to book a vacation — especially for a tired dad!
Ashton Kutcher
Ashton Kutcher explained the experience of having newborns during an appearance on the Ellen show.
"It's like getting a new cellphone where all the features don't work yet," he said. "It's like a phone that won't take pictures, and you're like, 'Why won't my phone take pictures?' And it won't make calls and it doesn't do a lot, but it looks really cute."
David Beckham
Even Brooklyn Beckham gets embarrassed by his dad sometimes, as David Beckham recounted in an appearance on Good Morning Britain.
"He tells me to park around the corner, and then he gets out and he walks around to his school," he said. "So he did it to me the other day, after doing it about five times on the trot. So I'm driving around, and he's just walking in his school, and I open the window and I said, 'Brooklyn! I love you!' And, you know, obviously it didn't go down very well."
Dierks Bentley
Country singer and dad Dierks Bentley recently took fans on a fun and very real ride on TikTok when he took his daughter bra shopping … and pretty much immediately realized that they needed her mom there. The video is funny, but something that so many dads have been through before.
Judd Apatow
Judd Apatow, who is dad to daughters Maude and Iris with wife Leslie Mann, once joked in a tweet about how much he doesn't like helping them with their homework … only for Maude to expose him in the process.
"Did you literally tweet that in my room just now?" she asked him in a reply.
Sean Lowe
Sean Lowe is always joking about his life with wife Catherine Giudici and their three children after they met and fell in love on The Bachelor … including this quip about the show that he included in the caption of a photo of him reading to his kiddos.
"Seriously … the lady said it would be a fun chance to travel the world. She said nothing about any of this. ABC might have a lawsuit heading their way," he wrote.
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Jimmy Kimmel
In the Apple TV+ documentary, Dads, Jimmy Kimmel revealed the moment he truly felt like a father for the first time: When his daughter projectile vomited into his mouth, of course.
"It hit my uvula," Jimmy said. "It went right into my throat. And of course your reaction is to throw this person as far away from you as possible. But I didn't. I held on to her and I spit as much as I could of it out. And that’s when I realized I was a dad."
Tom Brady
During a recent trip to Disney World, Tom Brady made the ultimate sacrifice for his daughter: He agreed to ride the Tower of Terror because he was scared. Yes, it did lead to this hilarious photo that we're so glad exists on the internet, especially the part of his caption where he wrote that he learned the hard way that his "kids were lying about Tower of Terror being 'mad chill.'"
