Papa was a Rolling Stone

Courtney Love started out as a musician in the ‘90s, but these days she’s known more as a bad parent than anything else. Shortly before Christmas last year, the Associated Press reported that a Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner granted control over her daughter, 17-year-old Frances Bean Cobain, to Kurt Cobain’s mother Wendy O’Connor and his sister Kimberly Dawn Cobain.

The court filing did not mention the former Hole frontwoman; the AP, however, alluded to her erratic behavior (“rambling online postings that have attacked a former bandmate and others” and “violating probation in three misdemeanor cases”) as a possible reason for the guardianship. 

It’s been almost two decades since grunge turned the world into a plaid-covered moshpit and yet the fascination remains. But this time around, it seems more eyes were trained on Frances Bean than on her crazy mama. 

Wasted, Reckless Youth

In March 2008, Frances told Harper’s Bazaar’s Laura Brown she knows why people are intrigued by her. “I’m famous by default. I came out of the womb and people wanted to know who I was because of my parents. If you’re a big Nirvana fan, a big Hole fan, then I understand why you would want to get to know me, but I’m not my parents. People need to wait until I’ve done something valid with my life.”

And Ms. Bean is not alone. With a degree of notoriety built into their DNA, celebrity spawn — especially rock ‘n roll offspring — are more prone to public scrutiny than, say, children of chemists. Back in their day, their parents perpetuated stereotypes of wasted, reckless youth; are their kids similarly doomed? It’s an unfair assumption that, in these vanilla times, only adds to the mystique.

The Family Stone

Maybe it’s their sheer number, but the sons and daughters of the Rolling Stones are first to come to mind. The previous generation had Jade Jagger, Mick’s daughter with Bianca. But the buzz now surrounds her half-sibling, 16-year-old Georgia May, who is following in the footsteps of her older sister Lizzy and mother Jerry Hall. (Georgia is a “supermodel in the making,” raves Interview magazine.) Jade’s children, Assisi and Amba Jackson, 17 and 13 respectively, were featured in Teen Vogue’s December/January issue, proving that the Jagger dynasty is indeed making some noise.

The Stones boys have also earned their share of press. Twenty-four-year-old James Jagger, Georgia’s brother, landed his first film role in a biopic of the composer Vivaldi in 2008. He once claimed having his father’s surname was “more of a curse than a blessing.” Meanwhile, 26-year-old Tyrone Wood, son of Ronnie, made the news by shunning a rock ’n’ roll lifestyle in favor of a steady job curating the family art gallery, Scream, in London’s Mayfair. After growing up with Mick Jagger’s children, Lizzie and Jimmy, and Keith Richards’s daughters, Theodora and Alex, he claims he’s “had years of being approached by fame-seeking phonies” and tells the UK’s Daily Mail that he “can spot them a mile off.”

Uberbrat Pack

“We’ve had the Rat Pack (Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr.), the Brat Pack (Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez, Andrew McCarthy, Molly Ringwald and Rob Lowe) and the Drab Pack (Winona Ryder, Matt Dillon, Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix). Now a new set has become style icons for a generation — the Uberbrat Pack,” proclaims The Guardian. “They are like a superior race, specially bred for the job. Peaches and Pixie Geldof, Daisy Lowe, Lizzy and Georgia Jagger, Jaime Winstone, Lily Allen and Coco Sumner, daughters of respectively Bob Geldof, (Gavin Rossdale), Mick Jagger, Ray Winstone, Keith Allen and Sting.”

The torrent of 21st-century name-dropping will not be complete, of course, without mentioning Tyson McVie, Neneh Cherry’s daughter; Zoe Kravitz, daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet; Django Stewart, son of the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart; Lily Collins, daughter of Phil Collins; and the Osbourne kids, Jack and Kelly. (And even though his dad isn’t a rocker, Indio Falconer Downer, Robert Downey Jr.’s son, gets a special nod due to his growing online fanbase.) 

Mysterious Gravitational Pull

“There’s a mysterious gravitational pull that seems to bond the children of legendary musicians. Encounter enough of them and it starts to feel like a secret society,” wrote Rolling Stone’s Mark Binelli in March 2005. “They’ve all grown up with parents who have simultaneously rejected society’s rules and reaped its rewards, and they all recognize certain traits in each other.”

See, if life were a fraternity, these descendants would be legacies, shoo-ins to a world of freebies and a life of critical gaze. From Frances Bean Cobain to Zoe Kravitz, there seems to be a never-ending parade of pretenders to the throne. But if there’s one child that people are watching extra closely and grooming as a trendsetter for the 2010s, it’s definitely Lourdes Leon, Madonna’s daughter.   

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Who’s your favorite celebrity offspring? See what I’m up to at ginobambino.tumblr.com. Let’s creep each other out!