Last we checked, Joel Madden and Nicole Richie were the parents of two toddlers. But suddenly their kids are teens and looking sophisticated at a movie premiere? Ah, the cruel passage of time.
The couple’s daughter, Harlow Winter Kate, 16, and son, Sparrow James Midnight, 14, joined their parents for the red-carpet premiere of Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, a remake of the 1991 comedy starring Christina Applegate about…well, it’s in the title, isn’t it? The teens looked so grown up in their all-black outfits, which matched with the rest of the family. Consider their red-carpet debuts nailed.
In pleather pants and a bustier corset top, Harlow truly could pass for her mother’s twin, or maybe a mix of Nicole and her sister Sofia Richie Grainge. Likewise, Sparrow and his dad have identical noses and features.
Part of the reason that it’s so surprising to see the Madden kids all grown up is that their parents hardly ever show them on social media, and when they do, it’s almost always a throwback to their early childhoods. When Harlow turned 13, Richie posted a picture of her at three months old. Which is a smart way to preserve their privacy, but man, the whiplash when they show up looking…big!
They also rarely open up about their parenting experiences, though Richie did share that her family, like many others, had to scramble to figure out how to function when schools went online-only in 2020. “Everything was happening at once, and I think everyone was just trying to make it work, and then we had the summer to kind of prepare for that new [school] year, and the kids, they just did it,” she said in July 2021. “They gave it their all. It just really made me so proud of them.” Bet she’s still proud!
