Even though Donny Osmond is one of the most well-known musicians, at home he is just grandpa.
The singer, 65, and his wife Debbie have five children: Don, Jeremy, Brandon, Christopher, and Joshua, who together have produced 14 grandchildren.
Osmond spoke about the benefits of having a large family and witnessing his sons take on their fatherly responsibilities about his son Chris’ recent performance on Claim to Fame.
To watch your child become a parent, raise their own children, and carry on the kinds of family traditions that Debbie and I created is such a lovely, warm feeling, says Osmond of his boys. The dynamic of watching your children become parents is wonderful. They enter that level of life after graduating while still learning to stand on their own two feet.
In fact, according to Osmond, he has established a particular ritual in which he plants a fruit tree in his orchard for each of his grandchildren, including his most recent, Dune Tyler Osmond, whom his son Chris and his wife Alta received in June.
Regarding Chris’ daughter, Aussie Rae, who was born in 2020, he remarks, “I just planted Dunes’ & Aussie Rae’s are beginning to get all the peaches on.” They’re actually almost ready to be chosen. Therefore, it’s enjoyable to take them out to the orchard with me to their tree so they may choose the fruit their grandpa grew for them.
Osmond comments that witnessing his grandchildren—whose ages vary from two months to eighteen—grow up has caused him to think back on his own youth.
The fact that he now has an 18-year-old grandchild and that he performed on the Donny & Marie show when he was younger is what he finds to be particularly amusing. “For instance, I began singing professionally at the age of 5, and when I look at these grandchildren, I wonder how in the world I managed to perform on stage with my brothers at that young age.”
As he prepares to begin his forthcoming stadium tour in the UK, he continues by saying how delighted he is to share his career with his grandchildren.
“My career is so much different in the UK,” he says. In the US, I consider myself to be more of an artist than a television personality. But in the UK, it’s chaos; it’s completely out of control. And they had never witnessed Grandpa in that setting.
“I’m using Coldplay’s effects in the show I’m putting together, but I’m bringing it to a whole other level. So my grandchildren will get to see all of this,” he continues, remembering their response to attending his Las Vegas concert in 2021.
“I’m playing with them and wrestling with them on the ground right before the show starts. But what happens after the show is pretty unique, he says. “They treat you a little bit differently. “The young ones in particular were like, ‘Wait a minute, is that grandpa out there?'” Grandpa was the one on stage, and now he’s battling with me, they simply can’t seem to connect the dots until I return. It was somewhat intriguing.
Even though Osmond and his children frequently get together for large family get-togethers, such as their most recent Claim to Fame season 2 finale viewing party, Osmond says he tries to step back in those situations so he can just relish being a grandfather.
“I’m the head of the family with my wife, but when we’re all together, I kind of take a backseat because I let my boys take over,” he claims. “I make a conscious effort to step aside and simply be Grandpa—not a famous person, not the head of the household with my wife, none of that. It resembles a grandfather playing with the grandchildren in the corner. That’s what I enjoy doing.