Rob Lowe's life and career in pictures: From '80s scandal to modern star
Rob Lowe has just celebrated his 60th birthday and frankly, fans can't believe his age.
The American star got his start in the '80s as a member of the famous 'Brat Pack' and has been a Hollywood staple ever since.
He's beaten personal demons and endured media scandals – including a massive sex tape scandal that could have ended his career – to become the star and family man he is today.
In honour of Lowe's 60th, we're taking a walk down memory lane.
Keep reading for a full timeline of Rob Lowe's career, personal life, relationship and kids.
St. Elmo's Fire, 1985
Lowe cemented himself as a member of 'The Brat Pack' when he appeared in St. Elmo's Fire in 1985.
The Brat Pack was a group of young actors in the 1980s, many of whom appeared in multiple coming-of-age films together.
Some of the most famous Brat Pack films include The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and of course, St. Elmo's Fire. and Sixteen Candles.
Lowe co-starred in the iconic film with Ally Sheedy (The Breakfast Club), Demi Moore (Ghost), Estevez, Mare Winningham (Turner & Hooch), Judd Nelson (The Breakfast Club) and Andrew McCarthy (Pretty In Pink).
READ MORE: The Brat Pack: Who they were, what movies they were in, and how they're all connected
Brat Pack era, 1980s
Being a member of The Brat Pack meant Lowe spent plenty of time on- and off-screen with actors like Nelson and Michael J. Fox (Back To The Future) in the 1980s.
Many of them would go on to have massive Hollywood careers, often inviting their former co-stars to work on film projects with them.
Dating Melissa Gilbert, 1980s
Lowe's star was rising fast and he was taking dating Little House on the Prairie actress Melissa Gilbert along for the ride.
The pair had met in the early 1980s and quickly started a romance.
"I fell instantly, hopelessly and stupidly in love," Gilbert wrote of their relationship in her memoir, Prairie Tale: A Memoir.
"We went from first date to instant couple. I felt like I was starving for Rob."
The pair were together for years, but rumors of infidelity plagued them after Lowe became famous.
In 1986, just one year after St. Elmo's Fire came out, Lowe (second right) proposed to Gilbert (right). Here they're pictured with his St. Elmo's Fire co-stars Estevez and Moore.
Not long after, Gilbert discovered she was pregnant.
It should have been a happy time, but the surprise pregnancy reportedly made Lowe reconsider their romance and realise he wasn't ready to settle down.
He and Gilbert broke up after a year of being engaged. Sadly, she experienced a miscarriage after the split.
"I had lost my baby and my relationship with Rob… and it hurt like hell," she wrote.
The actress later told Today USA: "We broke up. It ran its course. I think we were just too young.
"It was very, very painful. It was a very dark and difficult time for me."
Alcohol abuse, 1980s
Lowe's star was still rising as the 1980s came to an end, but behind the scenes he was struggling with alcohol abuse.
Though he was only a teenager when he first rose to fame, Lowe was regularly offered booze on the set of flicks like The Outsiders, leading him to adopt a party boy lifestyle in his early 20s.
"The thing that really blows my mind is, I look back at that 18-year-old in The Outsiders, and realise my kids are way way way way older than that and I would be worried putting them, now, in that position," he reflected in 2021.
Things only got worse for Lowe in 1988, when he was involved in a shocking sex tape scandal with an underage girl.
Sex tape scandal, 1988
Lowe was partying at a nightclub in Atlanta, Georgia, when he met two women Tara Siebert, 22, and Lena Jan Parsons, 16. They had sex on camera and the tape was leaked to the press.
It caused a huge media scandal, as though Parsons was old enough to consent to sex (the age of consent in Georgia was 14 at the time), she wasn't old enough to legally appear in a sex tape. The legal age for that was 18.
Lowe maintained he did not know she was underage. He settled a lawsuit with her family and was not charged with any crime.
Prior to the scandal, Lowe's career was on a major upwards trajectory. After it broke, everything changed.
Though his acting career took a hit, Lowe later confessed the sex tape scandal was the wake-up call he needed.
"It's one of the reasons why I got sober. I woke up one day and I was like, 'What am I doing with my life?'" he said in 2019.
"I'm 29 years in and like people talk, but it's the best thing that ever happened to me. Honestly, I do because it got me sober, sober got me married.
"I've been married 29 years and I have two great sons. I don't think any of that happens without going through that scandal."
Disastrous Oscars performance, 1989
In 1989, Lowe's star power took another hit when he appeared in a truly disastrous Oscars skit.
He took to the stage for a musical opening number, in which he performed a parody version of Creedence Clearwater Revival's Proud Mary alongside actress Eileen Bowman, who was dressed as Snow White.
It was panned by just about everyone who witnessed it, though Lowe convinced himself he'd "killed it" at the time.
"I remember vividly looking out in the audience and seeing Barry Levinson, who on that particular evening was the belle of the ball with Rain Man, and I could see him very clearly popeyed and mouthing, 'what the [expletive]?'" Lowe told The New York Times in 2018.
"But to be a successful actor, you have to have a big dollop of self-denial, so I managed to convince myself that I'd killed it."
After the show, 17 major Hollywood stars – including the likes of Paul Newman and Julie Andrews – penned a letter slamming the ceremony as "an embarrassment to both the Academy and the entire motion picture industry".
View more galleries
Most viewed in Celebrity
Lady Gaga welcomes surprise baby with fiancé Michael Polansky
‘Into trouble’: Russell Crowe admits he ‘mismanaged’ Hollywood career
Kylie Minogue baffles fans with latest career announcement: ‘The concept is crazy’
Gisele Bündchen makes rare comments about welcoming a baby at 44: ‘I don’t have anything to prove’
