All About Joaquin Phoenix’s ‘Flower Children’ Parents, Mom Arlyn and Dad John Lee Phoenix

Joaquin Phoenix comes from an acting family.

The Joker: Folie à Deux star grew up around the world with his parents, Arlyn and John Lee Phoenix, and his four siblings: River, Rain, Liberty and Summer. Arlyn and John welcomed their eldest son, River, in 1970 in Oregon and their first daughter, Rain, in Texas by 1972. Shortly after Rain’s birth, Arlyn and John joined the religious cult Children of God. Joaquin was later born in 1974 in Puerto Rico, followed by his sister, Liberty, two years later in Venezuela. In 1977, the family resettled in Florida and Arlyn and John’s youngest child, Summer, was born the following year.

The Academy Award winner told Vanity Fair in 2019 that his parents were considered “archbishops” of Venezuela and Trinidad for the infamous group before they chose to leave the organization when Arlyn was pregnant with Summer. Soon after moving to Florida, they packed up their bags again to head to California for the children to pursue their dreams of working in entertainment.

“My mom got a job at NBC, and then through her boss we were introduced to an agent,” Joaquin told The Guardian in March 2018. “We were a very expressive, creative bunch.”

Arlyn and John backed their children’s acting dreams when they were young. While their father ultimately distanced himself from the lifestyle, they both still made plenty of sacrifices that contributed to the success of the Phoenix children.

“My parents really were very dedicated to us, and in some ways they gave up many of the things they had had in their 20s to help us find what it was we dreamed of,” Rain told The Guardian in July 2011.

From their involvement with Children of God to their support of their kids’ careers, here’s everything to know about Joaquin Phoenix’s parents, Arlyn and John Lee Phoenix. 

John met Arlyn while she was hitchhiking in 1968

The Joker actor’s parents met by chance. Arlyn, who changed her name to Heart, was born in the Bronx, N.Y.C., to Jewish parents who immigrated from Russia. In the late 1960s, she decided to travel out west to California to experience counter-culture for herself, per The Guardian.

John was born John Lee Bottom before changing his and his family’s last names to “Phoenix,” when they moved to Hollywood, inspired by the bird rising from the ashes as the family embarked on their new era. He was born and raised in California and worked as a songwriter. In 1968, he picked up his future wife while she was hitchhiking, according to the outlet.

A year later, John and Arlyn got married in 1969.

They share five children

After their 1969 marriage, John and Arlyn welcomed their son River in 1970 and their daughter Rain soon after in 1972. Joaquin was born two years later, in 1974, followed by Liberty and Summer in 1976 and 1978, respectively.

The Phoenix children moved around a lot during their adolescence due to their family’s involvement with the Children of God religious group. John admitted he and Arlyn were “flower children” who were “full of faith and loved everybody” in a 1986 interview with PEOPLE. Rain echoed her father’s sentiments in a July 2011 interview with The Guardian, adding that her upbringing led her to become a “gypsy adult.”

“Travelling was a big part of my childhood and one that I value very much,” she said. “I get fidgety if I’m in one place for longer than three months.”

They were involved with the Children of God cult 

Arlyn and John were a part of the controversial religious organization Children of God. They joined the cult by the time Joaquin was born and served as “archbishops” of Venezuela and Trinidad, where they traveled and taught people about the group. Children of God has been criticized for its practices, such as using sex to lure people to join.

However, the Napoleon actor said his family’s participation in the cult “was really innocent on my parents’ part” in a 2014 interview with Playboy, adding that when they “realized there was something more to [Children of God], they got out.”

“They got some letter, or however it came, some suggestion of that, and they were like, ‘F— this, we’re outta here,’ ” Joaquin told Vanity Fair in 2019 about why his parents chose to leave after they found out about the sex recruitment tactic. “I think they were idealists, and believed that they were with a group who shared their beliefs, and their values. I think they probably were looking for safety, and family.”

They left the cult in 1977 when Joaquin was 3 years old.

Arlyn’s job led to their kids’ acting careers

John and Arlyn knew their children had talent at a very early age. During their time living in Venezuela, River and Rain sang religious tunes for money and won talent competitions after moving to Florida.

Because of their children’s talents, Arlyn and John took a leap of faith and moved to California where Arlyn got a job working as a secretary with NBC. From there, Joaquin told The Guardian the Phoenix children were introduced to their first agent.

“She was the only agent who would take all five of us because my parents didn’t want us to be split up,” he said.

They started by acting in commercials for meat and fast food places — despite their veganism. At the beginning of their careers, Joaquin remembered telling their agent, “We’re not going to do anything for McDonald’s or Coca-Cola. We’ll do bicycles and dolls, and that’s about it.”

While they joined the industry at an early age, Rain told The Guardian that Arlyn and John “never pushed [us] to do anything.”

“All I had [from my parents] was a lot of positive reinforcement,” she said. “The thing is with my parents, they very much embraced having children. As soon as they had us they switched their focus entirely to providing us with the best possible home life, spiritual support and love.”

John was weary of the entertainment industry’s impact on his children

While Arlyn and John supported their children’s careers, John grew weary of the entertainment industry. River revealed his father’s concerns for his children’s lifestyle in an August 1988 interview with Playgirl sharing that John was “worried that we could be ruined by this business” and didn’t “want us to become materialistic and lose all the values we were brought up believing in.”

Before River’s death in 1993, John distanced himself from Hollywood and relocated to Costa Rica, where he opened up a vegetarian restaurant with hopes for the kids to be “helping with the cooking, making music, writing, harvesting the organic fruit and living off the land like we used to,” he told TV Week Australia in 1994.

“I could see Hollywood was eating him up, bleeding him dry,” John said about his eldest son, River, after his death. “I told him I wanted him out of movies. I had been urging him to quit for some time. I had seen too many brilliant kids go down and I realized he couldn’t buck the system. I thought it was time for him to stop.”

Arlyn and John divorced in the early 1990s

After over two decades of marriage, Arlyn and John split in the early 1990s. Arlyn later married again to her husband, Jeffrey Weisberg.

Together, Arlyn and Jeffrey founded the River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding in 2012 in honor of her late son. She revealed in a 2013 open letter for The Gainesville Sun that they created the organization as part of River’s nonprofit, Eco-Rica Preservation.

John died in 2015 

On June 18, 2015, John died from cancer at 68 years old. In his 2019 profile with Vanity Fair, Joaquin was asked where his father lived, to which he replied, “He lives in heaven,” explaining that his death was not revealed to the public until then.