The Tragedy That Changed Clint Eastwood's Son Forever

Eastwood didn't get any special treatment from his no-nonsense father. As he told Route magazine, "there were no real handouts. . . . It was like, "Get a job. You want something, go out and get a job." But he seemed to come to appreciate his father's approach to parenting, telling Esquire that "he raised me with integrity–to be places on time, show up, and work hard." When Eastwood first decided on acting as a career, he wanted to avoid any potential accusations of trying to cash in on his famous father's fame by using his mother's last name, "Reeves." 

Still, even though Eastwood was the son of an iconic actor, inherited his rugged good looks, and grew up on acres of land in Hawaii, like anyone else, he was not immune to tragedy. Eastwood only opened up about the death of his girlfriend a few years after her fatal car crash, telling GQ Australia in 2016 that it was a minor incident that turned deadly because of a defective airbag. 

"Her airbag exploded. It shot a projectile through her body. It split her spine." Eastwood revealed that "I had never lost someone I had been really intimate with" and her death "maybe it's made it harder for me to date." 

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