10 Celebrities Who Got Real About the Hardships of Co-Parenting

Find out what these stars said about co-parenting ...

Kristin Cavallari and ex Jay Cutler may have once been amicable co-parents but through the years, things have changed. In 2025, Kristen called co-parenting with Jay the “ultimate test in life.” While reflecting on their situation jointly caring for their three children, Kristin admitted that there isn’t much consistency and implied that her ex doesn’t often show up for their kids. While they’ve been able to sit next to each other for certain events for the kids, she doesn’t ever see them spending the holidays together, like they once did. 

“It’s been so up and down…It has not been easy, to say the least ... It’s a bumpy road,” she said on Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast, adding that there is “zero f--king consistency, which is really hard.”

Brittany Cartwright and ex Jax Taylor have had a tumultuous relationship and she admits that co-parenting with him can be quite difficult. While discussing the situation, Brittany explained that because their relationship was so toxic and at times verbally abusive, she now can’t trust Jax. While she has primary physical custody of their young son, who is autistic, she says she wants to make sure the little boy is in “good hands” with his dad.

“He’s done so much damage, and me and Cruz weren’t enough for him to get help for a very long time,” she told People. “I want his dad to be in his life, but it’s just really hard when you can’t trust somebody. It’s going to take me a long time to regain trust in him, and that makes co-parenting extremely hard. I can just hope and pray that one day he will completely knock this, because I’m not sure yet.”

Kim Kardashian and ex Kanye West share four children -- and it’s no secret that their divorce has been tumultuous amid Kanye’s struggles. While speaking about their relationship, Kim discussed how tough things had been and how she was trying her best to keep her kids out of the drama. 

“Co-parenting is really f--king hard,” Kim shared on the Angie Martinez IRL podcast. “If they don’t know things that are being said, why would I ever bring that energy to them? That is real, heavy, grownup s--t that they are not ready to deal with. When they are, we will have those conversations. One day, my kids will thank me for not sitting here and bashing their dad. I could.”

Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen’s two children may be adults now, but it was a challenge to co-parent them when they were younger. Looking back, Denise admitted there was really no team effort between them and they both parented their girls individually, in very different ways. 

“Truthfully, it wasn’t co-parenting. I parent my way. He parents his way, and there was no co-parenting,” she shared on Whine Down with Jana Kramer. “I have kids with him ... I’m friendly with Charlie, but I wish we were friends and that we could talk all the time and be able to be there really for each other with our girls. But that’s just not the relationship we have. Maybe one day. But, I mean right now, there’s nothing. There’s no discord between he and I, which is great.”

She continued, “I never talked bad about him in front of the kids, and that’s hard to do -- to hold your tongue and not say certain things at times. I don’t know if I did a disservice to them with that as well because now that they're older, they're discovering things that they didn't know.”

Halle Berry has had a rocky road co-parenting with ex Olivier Martinez. While she hasn’t spoken out about it directly, their struggle to come together for their son has played out in court. Things got so bad at one point that Halle requested that she and Olivier attend co-parenting therapy sessions to “resolve disputes and conflicts between them.” According to court documents, the pair were ordered to individual sessions as well as joint sessions.

Gwyneth Paltrow and ex Chris Martin may have a healthy co-parenting relationship -- which even includes joint family vacations -- but it’s not always as easy as it seems. Gwyneth admits that they have their difficult moments, even if their relationship is now better than what it was when they were married. 

“It’s like you’re ending a marriage but you’re still in a family. That’s how it will be forever,” she shared on The Drew Barrymore Show. “Some days it’s not as good as it looks. We also have good days and bad days, but I think it’s driving towards the same purpose of unity and love and what's best for [our kids ... We have this idea that just because we break up we can’t love the things about the person anymore that we loved and that's not true.”

Tia Mowry knows how difficult co-parenting can be, especially around the holidays. In an Instagram post posing under the tree with the two children she shares with ex Cory Hardrict, Tia noted that things had been tough -- but she tried to look at it as an opportunity for her children to “build meaningful relationships with both parents.”

“Co-parenting during the holidays is a journey -- one that’s filled with a mix of emotions. It’s different, and yes, it can feel challenging and even lonely at times, especially when you’re adjusting to a new family dynamic,” Tia wrote on Instagram. 

She continued, “I’ll admit, as a single mom, I sometimes feel the weight because our family doesn’t look like others. But you know what? That’s okay. Different doesn’t mean less than. The most important thing is keeping the traditions alive for my children -- because no matter how it looks, we are still family. “

Since splitting from her ex Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen admits that co-parenting their two children can sometimes be  a struggle. With the kids moving between two households, she says there are different rules and sometimes the children try to push the limits. 

“I think there’s easier days than others ... They’re super smart children, they know what they can get away with. So I think it’s only natural that [there are] different rules and kids just adapt. They’re going to try to do what they want and I can only control what I do,” she shared in an interview for ABC News.

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony have been divorced for over a decade but looking back on the early days of their split, Jennifer says learning to co-parent was a struggle. She admitted that working through relationship issues while jointly raising their two children was “the hardest work” she’d ever done. 

“When it comes to work, I never get tired. But with personal failures, I have thought, ‘This is too hard,’” she told W magazine. “When my marriage ended, it was not easy to find forgiveness. It wasn’t the dream that I had hoped for, and it would have been easier to fan the flames of resentment, disappointment, and anger. But Marc is the father of my children, and that’s never going away. So, I have to work to make things right. And that is, by far, the hardest work I do.”

After Idina Menzel’s split from Taye Diggs, she opened up about what it was like to co-parent their son. She explained that she felt that by getting a divorce, she had failed her son by not giving him the ideal family situation. 

“You have a lot of regret with a child, and feeling like you’re failing them in some way. Not giving them the idealistic scenario,” she told People. “Your child comes first. That’s all. It’s all about that. He comes first and you have to get past your own egos and you never talk bad about each other.”