Billy Idol: The Wild Years, the Secrets, and the Children He Didn’t Know He Had

Saturday, 28 June 2025 00:05

Billy Idol’s wild past catches up with him as a surprise DNA test reveals a long-lost son from his hard-living heyday.

Long before rock stars softened for reality shows and nostalgia tours, Billy Idol lived like a man with no limits. With bleach-blond spikes, a signature snarl, and a string of anthemic hits like “White Wedding” and “Rebel Yell,” Idol became one of the most recognizable faces of the MTV era. But behind the bravado was a personal life spinning just as fast—and leaving more than a few surprises in its wake. One of those surprises, as it turns out, was a son named Brant—someone Idol had no idea existed until nearly 40 years later.

At the height of his fame in the 1980s, Idol’s off-stage life was a blur of sex, drugs, and hotel wreckage. He’s never sugarcoated it. In his memoir Dancing With Myself, Idol wrote candidly about the sheer volume of his romantic escapades and the whirlwind life that accompanied rock stardom. “Bed hopping was like breathing,” he said. And for years, he never looked back.

But even punk icons can't outrun reality forever. A serious motorcycle crash in 1990 brought Idol’s fast-paced life to a halt, just as the music scene was changing. Grunge was taking over, and his bold, swaggering style started to seem outdated. But amid the lull, personal truths began to surface.

Idol has long known about his son Willem, born in 1988 with his longtime partner, dancer Perri Lister. Willem followed in his father’s footsteps into music and has even joined him onstage. But in 2023, a bigger surprise surfaced—Idol learned he also had an older son, Brant, born in 1985 at the height of his hard-living tour years. The discovery came after Idol’s daughter, Bonnie Blue, took a 23andMe DNA test and matched with Brant as a half-sibling. Idol confirmed the connection, saying he wasn’t exactly stunned. “I had sex with a million people,” he told Page Six. “It’s not entirely unexpected.”

Brant, who works in construction and has two kids of his own, was welcomed into the family. He and Idol have since built a relationship, even appearing together at Idol’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony. Idol says the two share a sense of humor, and that he’s proud to be part of his life now. “I’m in a much better place to be present,” Idol said. “Back then, I wouldn’t have handled it well. But now? It’s a gift.”

That makes three children for Idol—Willem, Bonnie, and Brant—all from different points in the singer’s famously chaotic life. Together, they reflect a fuller picture of a man once defined entirely by volume and vice. The snarling image on screen was only part of the story. The rest is a little more grounded, a little more human.

As Idol continues to tour and record, his wild years are no longer just stories of backstage debauchery. They’ve become real, lasting pieces of his legacy—some he knew about, and others, like Brant, that came later but matter just as much.

Sources: