The Truth About Brian Austin Green's Children
Brian Austin Green has been a fixture in Hollywood since the early 1990s thanks to "Beverly Hills, 90210," the hit teen soap that helped launch him into fame. While Green never quite reached movie star status, he has managed to maintain a steady career over the years by making several appearances on different TV shows.
But what arguably keeps Green in the headlines the most are his relationships with his famous exes, "Las Vegas" actor Vanessa Marcil and "Jennifer's Body” star Megan Fox. Both of those relationships came with their fair share of drama, and some of it involved the children Green had with both women. Green began dating Marcil in 1999 after she joined the "Beverly Hills, 90210" cast, per Us Weekly. They welcomed their son, Kassius Lijah Marcil-Green, in 2002 and called it quits one year later. Green went on to marry Fox in 2010 and had three more sons with her: Noah Shannon Green, who was born in 2012, Bodhi Ransom Green, who was born in 2014, and Journey River Green, who was born in 2016. In 2019, Fox and Green split up. Fox moved on with rapper Machine Gun Kelly, while Green found love with professional dancer Sharna Burgess.
As for the children, Green appears to be super close with each of them now, although Marcil claims that this wasn't always the case. He has frequently discussed his boys in interviews and often posts photos of them on social media, despite criticism from Fox. Let's get to know more about his four boys.
Brian Austin Green was accused of cutting Kassius out of his life
Brian Austin Green has had a rocky relationship with ex Vanessa Marcil, which in turn impacted his relationship with their son, Kassius Lijah Marcil-Green. In a lengthy 2018 Instagram post, Marcil revealed that she and Green were at odds due to a bitter custody battle, as well as a lawsuit Green had filed against her. She wrote that she "spent 8 years+ defending myself and my son in custody court in response to his father & his stepmother trying to get full custody."
Marcil added that Green and Megan Fox "decided to completely cut Kass out of their lives" circa 2013 after losing both court cases. "Kass has never met his youngest brother," she wrote. She even alleged that he was "not allowed to know" where his family members lived. Kassius seemingly reiterated those claims when he commented on a 2018 Instagram post on E!'s account about his stepmother celebrating Halloween. He reportedly wrote, "I haven't lived with Megan and my dad for 4 years now, and I was not there for Halloween."
After the social media shaming, Green seemingly tried to repair his relationship with his son. The following year, Kassius shared Instagram photos from a trip to Vancouver with his dad, and Green posted about the "great experience" they had at a "Star Wars" event. Marcil even seemed to forgive Green. In September 2021, she posted a photo of Kassius visiting his dad on the "Dancing with the Stars" set, captioning it: "#TeamGreen."
Brian Austin Green's sons were criticized for wearing dresses and having long hair
Brian Austin Green and his ex Megan Fox have both opened up about supporting their eldest son Noah Shannon Green's decision to wear dresses, despite criticism from others. "He likes to wear dresses sometimes. And I send him to a really liberal, hippie school, but even there ... he still has little boys going, 'Boys don't wear dresses,'" Fox said on "The Talk" in 2019. Unfortunately, Fox told InStyle that Noah has also been disparaged by "mean, awful people and cruel people" on the internet. "I don't want him to ever have to read that s*** because he hears it from little kids at his own school," she added.
As for Green, he doesn't see Noah's fashion choices as a big deal. During a 2017 interview with Hollywood Pipeline, he shared a message for those who don't agree. "To them, I say, 'I don't care,'" he said, adding, "He's not harming anyone wearing a dress. So if he wants to wear a dress, awesome. Good on him."
Green has also defended his sons' long hair. After receiving some negative responses to a 2020 Instagram photo of the boys, he posted his own comment that read (via People), "The fact is my boys have and like long hair. In my opinion they are beautiful." Their supportive mom is also teaching them to be "confident no matter what anyone else says," so they know that both of their parents will always have their backs.
Brian Austin Green and Megan Fox are co-parenting their sons post-split
While it's clear that Brian Austin Green and Megan Fox's sons are important to each of them, it doesn't mean co-parenting has been easy. "There's no rule book to it ... We're learning as we go. The important thing for us is just communicating as much as we can," Green said on the "Hollywood Raw" podcast in 2020. He also touched on how it was important to protect their kids from negativity, but he admitted, "We can't take the view that it won't affect the kids, because it will."
In July 2021, an unnamed source told Us Weekly that the former couple has come a long way, saying, "They are on better terms now ... it's still a work in progress — but they are doing much better at it." The insider added that it was "for the sake of their kids" since, "the two older ones are getting to the age where they can start reading things about their parents on the internet, so they are really careful about what they say about one another."
When it comes to parenting their children, Fox told InStyle that she gets criticized much more than Green, with people often asking her where her kids are. She shot back, "Do you ask their dad when he's out? No, because you don't expect a dad to be with the kids all the time, but I'm supposed to not be seen ... They have another parent."
Brian Austin Green and Megan Fox used their sons' photos to throw shade
Brian Austin Green and Megan Fox may be getting along these days, but that wasn't always the case — the two have very publicly shaded each other on Instagram. It all started in August 2020 when Fox posted a photo with boyfriend Machine Gun Kelly, captioning it, "Achingly Beautiful Boy... My heart is yours." That same day, Green decided to post photos of his four sons and mimicked Fox's caption, seemingly to criticize where he felt Fox's priorities were.
That November, Fox decided that it was her turn to throw shade by commenting on a now-deleted photo Green posted of their son, Journey, celebrating Halloween. Per Entertainment Tonight, Fox wrote, "I had a great halloween with them yesterday, and yet notice how absent they are from my social media." She took it a step further, adding, "You're so intoxicated with feeding the pervasive narrative that I'm an absent mother, and you are the perennial, eternally dedicated dad of the year."
It didn't help that Green's other exes, Vanessa Marcil and Courtney Stodden, seemed to take Fox's side. Marcil shared a post reading, "The Truth always comes out in the end," while Stodden accused Green of using "his kids as a flex" in a since-deleted post. However, as of July 2021, Green and Fox have seemingly changed their attitudes. "Neither of us are sending petty digs to each other. We both work really hard to get along," Green wrote on his Instagram Story.
Brian Austin Green and Megan Fox's sons have met their significant others
Both Brian Austin Green and Megan Fox have found love again since their split. Green explained on the "Hollywood Raw" podcast that he and Fox decided to only introduce their boys to significant others if "it's a very established relationship and something that you're taking very seriously because you don't want people coming in and out of kids' lives." He added, "We've talked about being as responsible as we can with the kids."
Fox has introduced Noah, Bodhi, and Journey to her boyfriend, rapper Machine Gun Kelly (whose real name is Colson Baker). An unnamed source told People in April 2021, "Colson is getting to know her kids," adding, "She is excited that they have accepted Colson." A few months later, TMZ even spotted Fox and Baker taking her three boys to a painting studio.
As for Green, he has also introduced the boys to his girlfriend, Sharna Burgess. In May 2021, The "Anger Management" star posted an Instagram photo of Burgess hanging out with his sons in a swimming pool. The "Dancing with the Stars" pro seems to have taken to Green's kids. "I'm grateful that I've been able to fit ... into their world. He's a wonderful dad, and he and his wife — uh, ex-wife — have raised three beautiful children," she told "The Morning Show" (via Us Weekly). She added, "And they are so wonderful and sweet and kind and considerate, and they've done such an amazing job."
Brian Austin Green's kids quarantined with both him and Megan Fox
The lives of Brian Austin Green and Megan Fox's children were altered by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in April 2020, The Daily Mail reported that, even during quarantine, Noah, Bodhi, and Journey were still going back and forth between both of their parents' homes. The former couple was spotted meeting up in a California parking lot so the boys could, presumably, switch which parent they were staying with.
It appears that Green made an effort to make sure their kids' time in quarantine wasn't so bad. The "Dancing With the Stars" competitor told Entertainment Tonight in December 2020, "I built a chicken coop over the summer. And now I'm currently building a vegetable garden." He explained that he wanted to make eating at home a "cooler experience for the kids" since it was something they were doing so often. "Their involvement is what keeps them excited about eating it," he added.
Yet, the pandemic did come with its challenges, especially with remote learning. Green revealed, "We have a pod of like six other kids, because our 8-year-old, he just wasn't into the remote learning at all. Sitting in front of a computer and doing that, that just wasn't his thing." On "The Kelly Clarkson Show," Fox revealed that their two youngest kids were struggling with it, too. She dished, "We've been really affected by the pandemic also, and trying to do Zoom school for 4-year-olds and 6-year-olds doesn't work."
Brian Austin Green's boys are best friends but fight a lot
Like most brothers, Brian Austin Green's kids don't always get along. The father of four told People in 2017, "They hit each other and cry and complain ... and say, 'I'll never play with you again.' And then play with each other five minutes later." Their mother, Megan Fox, echoed his claims that same year, telling Extra, "My older two are wild beasts and they're always fighting."
It seems that, over the years, not much has changed. In 2021, Fox joked on "The Kelly Clarkson Show" that "it's like UFC fight night all day, every day" in her house. She explained, "They love each other. They're best friends, but the fighting is non-stop because they have so much energy, and they're so rambunctious that it's just a melee." Fox even gave an example of their raucous behavior, adding, "'My kids will pull out fistfuls of hair."
Fox admitted in 2014 that not allowing her kids to watch TV probably makes things more difficult. She explained her decision to Parents magazine, saying, "They're just being bombarded with all of this sort of live media and it's very overwhelming and it's too stimulating I think for anyone." She added, "My goal is no computers, no cell phones until at least 8th grade." It's unclear if Fox has stuck to that goal, but Green seems to disagree. In October 2020, he posted a photo of their sleeping boys "watching" him on "The Masked Singer."
Brian Austin Green frequently posts his kids on Instagram
It appears that Megan Fox didn't just want to keep her and Brian Austin Green's kids away from TV, but also social media. She told Entertainment Tonight in 2016, "It interferes with brain development ... I'm very passionate about it, in general, because it's such a platform for, not just bullying, but body shaming, for making people feel badly about themselves." Fox seemingly has stuck to her principles in that she rarely posts photos with her children. As of this writing, her latest Instagram photo of them was taken during a Halloween Disneyland trip in 2019.
As for Green, he seems to have a totally different take. "The Connors" actor often features his four boys on his Instagram. He has posted photos of their gathering on Father's Day, their pool days and beach days together, and adventures in Big Bear, as well as things as mundane as a "Target run" and the kids sleeping on the couch. So Green is clearly more into sharing family moments with his fans than Fox is.
His followers seem to enjoy the glimpses inside his family life. One of them commented on a photo, "Dad of the year, and I don't need to explain why." Another wrote on a different post, "You're a great dad." And while Green and Fox's children are too young for Instagram, Green's eldest son, Kassius Lijah Marcil-Green, has his own account that Green tags.
Brian Austin Green's children are encouraged more than punished
It doesn't seem that Brian Austin Green and Megan Fox have raised their boys with an iron fist. Fox explained to Harper's Bazaar Arabia, "I don't think I need to teach my children with harsh words or with punishment. I believe that if I love them the right way, there's no need for that." She singled out her second son Bodhi while talking about her parenting philosophy, saying, "I don't act as a disciplinarian or an authority figure per se. I don't ever want to be a restrictive force on him."
Green may have had trouble adopting that mindset initially, since he told Rachel Ray (via E!) in 2019, "I'm much more the bad cop than she is and at first that sort of was an issue for us." However, Green is apparently much more interested in inspiring his sons than punishing them. He told Us Weekly, "I think we just encourage them. We don't encourage them to be themselves, we just encourage whoever they are."
It seems that Fox wouldn't mind if her sons grew up to be "the sensitive type," like their dad. She told The Daily Mail in 2014, "I'm going to raise our boys like that: sensitive, sweet, chivalrous types." She added, "I have a little football team that's going to take care of me." As for Green, even though it didn't work out with either of his sons' moms, he has described his children as his "heart."