‘Still Very Hard and Painful’: Liv Tyler Reveals How Stepfather Is Still Hurt After Learning Decades Ago That Aerosmith Bandmate Steven Tyler Was Her Real Father
Actress Liv Tyler is keeping it real about how the man who raised her feels after learning who her real biological father is.
It’s been decades since Liv learned that her real father was Aerosmith’s lead singer Steven Tyler.
On Monday, April 14, she sat with Kate and Oliver Hudson on their podcast “Sibling Revelry” and revealed how the devastating news impacted her stepdad, Nazz musician, Todd Rundgren.
Liv explained that she first discovered the truth around the age of 9 when her mom, Bebe Buell, took her to an Aerosmith concert. It was there that she noticed the striking resemblance between her and this young girl on stage. She would later find out that the girl was her half-sister Mia Tyler, who’s now 46. Mia’s mom is Cyrinda Foxe. She was married to Steven from 1978 to 1987.
Liv looked at her mom and Buell just “bawled.”
“I was like, ‘is Steven my dad,’” Liv said. “She just like bursted. And then she took me to a bench, and we sat on a bench at this outdoor amphitheater and she told me the whole story in the most sincere, beautiful way.”
“I just was there with it and then we went backstage after the show and then there was Mia and we met for the first time.” While Liv was understandably in shock, she seemed to handle the news well at her pre-teen age.
“After that concert, we went home and my mom had a chaise lounge in front of a window. I remember sitting there for what felt like three days, but it was probably three hours, and coming to this conclusion of ‘Whoa, I have two dads and all this love.’”
But it was her stepfather — whom she thought of to be her father up until then — that she said didn’t take it well. Rundgren had been in Liv’s life the whole time and even there to sign the birth certificate when she was born.
“It’s probably still very hard and painful and I don’t speak to him enough. I love him. 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.”
Rundgren had only dated Buell for three years on and off. But was still there for Liv even after he had dated other people. As a traveling artist himself, he would have Liv visit him and his two sons and they all took trips together.
“He took care of me as like he was dad.”
Fans reacted to the news in Us Weekly’s Instagram post.
One person said, “She looks like Todd Rundgren more than Steven Tyler.”
Another person who had the same sentiment joked, “Better retake that dna lol.”
A third person asked, “Why did her mom let a lie like this go on?”
As for how her mother and Steven crossed paths, that credit goes to Steven’s high school friend and music journalist Liz Derringer, who was married to musician Rick Derringer.
According to Liv, Liz “introduced my mom and Steven at Max’s Kansas City one night or something and they made me.” After finding out she was pregnant at 23, Liv said her mother was scared when she realized “how much drugs” Tyler was doing and she called Rundgren and told him she was pregnant.
Todd “asked her to come to where they lived in Woodstock, in upstates. New York,” she exclaimed. “Basically he very courageously and lovingly said, ”This child needs a father and I’ll be the father.’”
“The Lonesome Jim” star explained that Rundgren and Buell had initially planned out what they would do with the truth about Steven being Liv’s father. “I think there was some sort of an agreement that maybe I would never know or maybe I would have to be 18. And then that was broken.”
Liv said after her mother came out with the truth about her real father, she was then moved from Maine to New York City, where she was closer to Mia. It wasn’t until they made the move that her mom allowed her to talk about Steven.
Liv has two other siblings. They have their sister Chelsea Anna Tyler, 36, and their brother Taj Monroe Tallarico, 34. Chelsea and Taj’s mother is Teresa Barrick. She married Steven in 1988 before divorcing in 2006.