Clay Aiken’s lookalike 16-year-old son, Parker, is all grown up and stepping out with his famous dad for a rare public family outing.
The American Idol alum, 46, brought his son to the opening night of Boop! The Musical on Saturday, April 5, at New York City’s Broadhurst Theatre, where they enjoyed seeing the Broadway production based on the iconic cartoon character Betty Boop.
As the father-son duo posed together on the red carpet, Aiken looked dapper in a navy turtleneck sweater, which he paired with a brown pinstripe blazer. Parker, meanwhile, opted for a black suit with a patterned button-down underneath.
“Proud to support Uncle David [Foster] on his INCREDIBLE Broadway debut,” Aiken gushed via his Instagram Stories later on Saturday. “If you don’t have your tickets to @boopthemusical, get them NOW!”
Aiken then joked that Foster’s head “may grow bigger than Boop’s” due to all the praise.
Foster, 75, composed the musical for the show alongside Bob Martin and Susan Birkenhead. He is also Parker’s maternal uncle.
Aiken shares his only son with David’s sister, Jaymes Foster. (Aiken and Jaymes, who are longtime friends, welcomed Parker in 2008.)
“I feel a little more mature and substantially older. I realized on Father’s Day, ‘Oh wait, I don’t have to do anything for Father’s Day, it is for me!’” Aiken exclusively told Us Weekly in June 2010, discussing how parenthood changed his life. “It’s strange to think about that. I enjoy also the quiet of living in North Carolina still and then I come back here to New York a good chunk of the time, at least a week a month doing [press]. I’m a fan of New York. People are a little more grounded here.”
American Idol paved the way for reality competition shows to help everyday people achieve their dreams of music stardom. The series premiered in 2002 on Fox with a star-studded judging panel consisting of Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson. American Idol‘s freshman season introduced Kelly Clarkson, who would become the show’s first breakout star. […]
At the time, Aiken told Us that it wasn’t “that hard” balancing parenthood and his music career.
“We’ve been pretty well. Anybody who has a kid has to juggle everything. So it’s not that much different,” he quipped. “We have a nice system that we work out between when he’s with her and he’s with me and we’re together and all that stuff. It’s been really authentic.”
Aiken rose to fame when he appeared on season 2 of American Idol, where he was the runner-up behind Ruben Studdard.
“We cared what the judges said, not only because we didn’t want them to say something mean, but also because we would take it and then go back and next week say, ‘Don’t do this again,’” Aiken told Us in November 2024, looking back on his Idol stint. “Or they said, ‘I’m singing too many ballads. Sing something uptempo.’ You would make a point to improve yourself. I [appreciated] the criticism.”
