The eldest son of the late Rik Ocasek says the Cars frontman was a narcissist and a deadbeat dad.
Chris Otcasek, a 56-year-old who uses the spelling of his father’s original surname, was born to Ocasek’s first wife Constance Campbell.
Ocasek died on Sept. 15, 2019 at 75 of heart failure and pulmonary emphysema. To mark the anniversary, Otcasek posted a photo on Instagram showing he and brother Adam with their famous father that he captioned: “You don’t exist. We didn’t either.” He included a long list of hashtags, including “deadbeatdad,” “throwawaykids,” “cruelpretender” and “myfatherdiedtwice.”
“My father, in essence, died the day I was born,” Otcasek told Page Six. “He was never present, he was never there. Even when he was, he was never there and that’s the abandonment that I’m referring to.”
Otcasek said he rarely heard from Ocasek until The Cars started having success with hits like “Shake It Up” and “You Might Think.”
“There may have been a touch of guilt, but I also think he wanted to say he was becoming famous and I think that gets into one of the more universal things in that he was just simply a narcissist,” said Otcasek.
“He didn’t have the sort of conscience to keep him grounded so he just kept going and always went for the next thing even if that meant abandoning or neglecting children. That was fine with him. I don’t think he thought much about it.”
Ocasek had two more sons with second wife Suzanne and two with third wife Paulina Porizkova. Only those four sons were included in Ocasek’s will, which listed $5 million (all figures U.S.) in unspecified “copyrights” and only $100,000 in “tangible personal property” and $15,000 in cash.
“I have made no provision for my wife Paulina Porizkova as we are in the process of divorcing,” Ocasek wrote in the will, which was signed less than a month before his death. “Even if I should die before our divorce is final … Paulina is not entitled to any elective share … because she has abandoned me.”
Last week, Porizkova – who is contesting the will – admitted on Instagram: “While my love for my husband was steady and my trust in him absolute, I was clearly delusional. I believed I knew him.”
She said she is grieving the singer with “an equal amount of heartbreak and rage” but has “nothing to cry about except for my own stupidity.”