{"id":2123616,"date":"2025-10-29T22:45:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T22:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2123616"},"modified":"2025-10-29T22:45:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T22:45:19","slug":"10-celebrities-who-grew-up-as-pastors-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/10-celebrities-who-grew-up-as-pastors-kids\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Celebrities Who Grew Up as Pastors’ Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

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There are a lot of stereotypes about pastors\u2019 kids \u2014 some more fair than others \u2014 but maybe the safest thing you can say about being a PK is that it comes with some expectations. Every Sunday morning, you\u2019re on a stage (sometimes literally), with members of the congregation going through a mental checklist of how you do or don\u2019t fit in with their preconceived notions of what the son\/daughter of a preacher ought to be like.<\/p>\n

Some PKs go on to become pastors themselves. Some hightail it out of the Church as fast as possible. And some of them go on to be extremely famous entertainers. Here are a few stars that you probably didn\u2019t know came from ministry families:<\/p>\n

1. John Boyega<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Before fighting the Empire,\u00a0Star Wars\u00a0actor John Boyega was busy navigating a different kind of pressure: being the son of a Pentecostal preacher in South London. Boyega has kept his family life mostly private, but he\u2019s made it clear his faith and family are foundational. \u201cThe skill and ability that I\u2019ve received has been from your prayers,\u201d he wrote in a post<\/a> honoring his parents, \u201cand I cannot ignore what God has used my parents to do in my life.\u201d A Force to be reckoned with\u2014literally and spiritually.<\/p>\n

2. Hunter Schafer<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Euphoria<\/i> might not scream \u201cPK,\u201d but Hunter Schafer\u2019s upbringing says otherwise. Her dad, Mac Schafer, is the lead pastor at Hudson Memorial Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, and her mom, Katy, runs children\u2019s ministry at another local church. Schafer recently opened up about growing up in ministry life in an interview with GQ<\/i><\/a>, proving that not all PKs end up playing it safe.<\/p>\n

3. Marcus Mumford<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Before he was leading stadiums in folky anthems, Marcus Mumford was watching his parents lead church services. John and Eleanor Mumford weren\u2019t just pastors\u2014they helped start the Vineyard movement in the U.K. \u201cWatching my folks at the center of attention\u2026 provided some element of training for what I chose to do,\u201d Mumford said in 2022<\/a>. Turns out the pulpit and the main stage aren\u2019t all that different.<\/p>\n

4. Katy Perry<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Yes, that<\/i> Katy Perry. Long before the, uh, interesting world tour and Top 40 dominance, she was belting out church hymns<\/a> while her parents\u2014Keith and Mary Hudson\u2014traveled the country as fiery evangelical preachers<\/a>. She\u2019s been open about her complicated relationship with her religious upbringing, but it\u2019s safe to say her showmanship started in church aisles.<\/p>\n

5. Adam Driver<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not every day you go from Indiana church choir kid to Star Wars<\/i> villain, but Adam Driver makes it look effortless. Raised by his mom and Baptist pastor stepdad, Driver got his first taste of performance singing hymns<\/a> before eventually joining the Marines and heading to Juilliard. A wild path, but hey\u2014every good sermon has a twist.<\/p>\n

6. Kelis<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Her milkshake brought all the boys to the yard, but first, Kelis was harmonizing in a Pentecostal household in Harlem<\/a>. Her dad was both a minister and a jazz musician, and that creative-spiritual fusion clearly shaped her bold sound and even bolder aesthetic.<\/p>\n

7. Phil Jackson<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Zen Master himself\u2014Phil Jackson\u2014was raised by not one<\/i> but two<\/i> Pentecostal pastors. His parents were Assemblies of God ministers<\/a> in Montana, and they fully expected him to follow suit. Instead, he traded the pulpit for the paint and ended up with 11 NBA championship rings. He may have walked away from the church, but the discipline stuck.<\/p>\n

8. The Jonas Brothers<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Before they were purity ring-wearing pop stars, the Jonas Brothers were New Jersey PKs. Their dad, Kevin Jonas Sr.<\/a>, went from worship leader to senior pastor while the boys grew up surrounded by ministry and music. They\u2019ve since deconstructed and redefined their faith in public, but those church roots are still part of the origin story.<\/p>\n

(Honorable mention: Frankie Jonas, the \u201cBonus Jonas\u201d and co-host of Claim to Fame<\/i>, who also logged time in pews growing up.)<\/p>\n

But the Jonases aren\u2019t the only PK siblings who grew up to be musicians\u2026<\/p>\n

9. Kings of Leon<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Turns out Kings of Leon<\/a> were kings of church<\/i> before they were kings of Southern garage rock. Caleb, Nathan and Jared Followill spent their early days touring backroads with their United Pentecostal preacher dad<\/a>, playing music at revivals across the South. They swapped altar calls for arena tours\u2014but the gospel-sized ambition stayed.<\/p>\n

10. Denzel Washington<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Denzel Washington\u2019s on-screen intensity may just be a PK superpower. His father was a<\/p>\n

\u00a0in New York, and Denzel spent his early life in church before his parents\u2019 divorce pulled him away from that world. Still, he\u2019s spoken often about his faith and sense of calling, even crediting a prophecy from a stranger in a salon for convincing him he was meant to \u201cspeak to millions.\u201d Spoiler: she was right.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source relevantmagazine.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are a lot of stereotypes about pastors\u2019 kids \u2014 some more fair than others \u2014 but maybe the safest thing you can say about being a PK is that it comes with some expectations. Every Sunday morning, you\u2019re on a stage (sometimes literally), with members of the congregation going through a mental checklist of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2123617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2123616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/10-Celebrities-Who-Grew-Up-as-Pastors-Kids.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2123616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2123616"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2123616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2123618,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2123616\/revisions\/2123618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2123617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2123616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2123616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2123616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}