Some fathers raise their voices, some give the big stare down, others (like Summer Redstone) just write you out of the family trust, but “Love Story” actor Ryan O’Neal prefers the more direct method when it comes to dealing his semi-psychotic son, Griffin. In the 80’s O’Neal knocked two of Griffin’s front teeth out. Then this weekend, at a casual fete for his former longtime romantic partner, actress Farrah Fawcett, to celebrate her 60th birthday and the news that she was “cancer free”. From TMZ:

Ryan O’Neal says that it was his son Griffin who instigated the incident that led to Ryan’s arrest on suspicion of assault early Saturday morning. Ryan accuses Griffin of “wildly swinging a fireplace poker” at him, an action that allegedly caused an injury to Griffin’s pregnant girlfriend.

O’Neal added that his son grazed him “four or five times” with the fireplace poker and that when he ducked to avoid the swinging weapon, Griffin “hit his own girlfriend in the head.” O’Neal adds that he got “nervous” because of the woman’s pregnancy. “I fled to my room,” he says, “and I got my gun.” When Griffin pursued him anew, says Ryan, he fired his gun “into the banister” which scared Griffin into fleeing.

Raising Griffin has been anything but easy.

In 1983, Ryan knocked out two of Griffin’s teeth in an altercation. Police were called but no charges filed. Griffin O’Neal was found guilty of reckless boating for his part in the death of Gian-Carlo Coppola, the son of Francis Ford Coppola. He also pleaded no contest to drunk driving in 1989 and no contest in 1992 to charges that he shot at his then-estranged girlfriend’s empty car.

tags: ryan o’neal

This entry was posted on Monday, February 5th, 2007 at 9:55 am by Insider and is filed under Loons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.