Some of Hollywood’s biggest stars have equally famous parents, and that’s the case with Rashida Jones – but can you guess the names of her A-list mom and dad?
Rashida Jones is the daughter of music producer Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton. She followed in her mother’s footsteps and became an actress but also collaborated with her father on several projects.
Stick around to learn more about Rashida Jones’s parents and the strong bond they shared.
Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton
Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton both found success on their own before tying the knot in 1974. Jones was a famed musician and producer, with several Grammy wins and Oscar nominations under his belt, while Lipton won a Golden Globe for her role on The Mod Squad.
Lipton decided to take a break from acting after getting married and focused on raising their daughters. Jones was still going strong and kicked off one of the most significant collaborations of his career after working with Michael Jackson in 1978 musical The Wiz.
Lipton resumed her acting career after divorcing Jones in 1990. She landed the role of Norma Jennings on David Lynch’s cult series Twin Peaks and starred in several movies, including True Identity and The Postman.
Jones’s career also flourished during the ‘90s – he co-created the hit sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and received a Grammy Legend Award in 1992. He’s currently the most nominated person in the Grammys history, with a total of 80 nods – 28 of which he ended up winning.
Rashida was ten when her parents parted ways but remained close with both of them. The couple divorced four years after their separation, and Rashida stayed with her mother, while her sister Kidada moved in with their father.
Strong Bond
The relationship between Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton wasn’t without its critics, and their mixed-race marriage raised some eyebrows in the ‘70s. One of the people who slammed Quincy for being married to a white woman happened to be the late rapper Tupac Shakur.
His comments didn’t sit well with Rashida, who penned a passionate open letter published by The Source, where she accused him of “ignorance and lack of respect for his people”. Tupac later started dating her sister Kidada and managed to mend his relationship with the Jones family.
“That was a nice full circle, and it was a good lesson for me, because I knew in my heart of hearts that I’d never forgive anyone for talking like that about my family, and I was wrong,” Rashida told The Guardian.
Despite the fact their relationship didn’t work out, Quincy and Peggy remained close until her death in 2019. He panned an emotional tribute after she passed away, saying that their love was eternal “regardless of the paths that [their] lives took [them] on”.
Working with Her Parents
In addition to being an actress, Rashida Jones is also a successful director, writer, and producer, and her parents were involved in some of her projects. After she scored the titular role on TBS sitcom Angie Tribeca, it was reported that Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton would play her parents in the pilot.
Lipton appeared in two episodes, but Rashida ended up recasting Quincy to “keep him humble”. She paid tribute to her dad in a different way – by co-directing Netflix documentary Quincy, which she described as “the definitive movie about his life”.
Growing up with famous parents didn’t shield Jones from struggling to find success as an actress. People still accused her of using her parents’ connections to get ahead in Hollywood, but she’s not bothered by those comments anymore.
“I would never say ‘poor me’, but there definitely was a lot of pre-judgment about how I got my job in the beginning, when the truth is I was just another actress getting knocked back at auditions for years,” Jones told The Guardian.