At 57, Tom Arnold surprisingly finds himself the father of 2 kids under the age of 4.
After 4 marriages, and 23 failed attempts at in vitro fertilization which cost the comedian more than$1M, Tom Arnold is happy, in love, and father to a son and daughter.
With each wife, he knew the problem was with his body, and that their body would go through the trauma of the treatments and trying to have a son. Each time, he was willing to take an easier route by adopting or using a donor.
“I met my wife, Ashley,” Arnold told me in a radio station interview,“and I said ‘I’m not putting you through it.’ You know, at the time I lived next to Shaquille O’Neal and I thought ‘He makes incredible kids, I’d love to have a 7 foot tall black son.’
“So we changed some things in the way I was living my life and the last time we had a miracle happen. I was 0 for 23, and then we went 2 for 2.”
And, in a scene out of US Magazine’s “Celebrities, they’re just like us!”, Arnold finds something familiar about fatherhood that all new dads, young and old, can relate to; when they settle in for a family Netflix session, he’s cursing at Caillou.
“I will not let him watch Caillou. Caillou is a whiner,” Arnold told me in a radio station interview in April. “He loved Caillou, everything was Caillou, but then he started emulating Caillou. I had to take it off the tv, I had to say ‘Caillou died, I’m sorry son.'”
We shouldn’t be surprised that celebrity kids are just like our kids, I mean of course they are. Even when it comes to being obsessed with garbage trucks.
“My son likes watching garbage trucks. He watches videos over and over and then we’ll go out in the street and watch the garbage man come up,” explained Arnold. “He wants to be a garbage man, or a fireman. I’m all for it. Both of those careers are far more stable than show business.”
His son has even peered over his shoulder and mastered his iPad, iTunes, and Netflix passwords. The struggle is real, even for celebrity fathers.
But it’s not all doom and gloom for Arnold. His son loves Peppa Pig, and he’s down with that decision. (Here, here!)
I also passed along recommendations of Chuck and Friends and Dinotrux to Arnold as Netflix shows that turn down the Caillou-esque whine factor while celebrating friendship, participation, and featuring those trucks that his son loves so much.
Tom Arnold stars as himself on Season 10 of The Trailer Park Boys, now available on Netflix.
Disclosure: I’m a member of the Netflix Stream Team.