Courtesy of John Travolta/Instagram
John Travolta ‘Feels Blessed’ That His Kids Inherited Kelly Preston’s ‘Wisdom and Kindness’
John Travolta has a new lease on life since turning 70, and it’s largely thanks to the support and guidance he gets from his kids. Sources tell Closer the Grease icon credits his children for steering him on the right track and being way wiser than their actual years after the death of his wife, Kelly Preston, following a two-year battle with breast cancer in 2020.
“They are so loving and supportive to their dad. John doesn’t know how he’d get by without them, not with Kelly gone these past few years,” an insider exclusively tells Closer of John’s bond with kids Ella and Ben.
“They have their separate lives to a point, friends, activities and Ella has her burgeoning music career, and no one intrudes on each other, but the fact remains John’s closer than ever to his kids,” the insider adds. “He depends on them for advice on meals, fashion, places to visit, everything. In many ways they are the Hollywood ideal of the perfect family. John just feels blessed Ella and Ben inherited all their mom’s wisdom and kindness and strength. He’s learned over the years not to listen to anybody else outside of these two. He depends on family first.”
John is always gushing over the achievements of Ella, 24, and Ben, 14, on social media whenever he gets the chance. To kick off 2025, he shared a photo with his children on Instagram.
“Happy new year from the Travolta family,” the proud dad captioned a family photo with Ella and Ben on Instagram on January 1.
Months earlier, John celebrated the release of Ella’s song “Little Bird” and the accompanying music video.
“This is a very special day Ella is releasing her new single called ‘Little bird,’” John wrote on Instagram on September 6, 2024. “This song and video is an homage to her mother, and it also happens to be my wedding anniversary with Kelly. It is one of the songs on her upcoming album that I helped produce – please enjoy!”
Ella spoke out about how the song paid tribute to her mother after her passing.
“[‘Little Bird’ is] about holding onto those pure relationships that you have with people that you lost and really just listening to yourself and staying true to that relationship with that person,” the singer told People in a September 2024 interview. “It’s sort of the viewpoint of a mama bird talking to a baby bird and just not letting any other interference get in between it, because your true instincts were there all along.”
“It had been a couple years, obviously, since my mom’s passing, so I could look at the whole situation and take a step back from it and see what I wanted to communicate on it and what I wanted to communicate to her and what I was feeling in general,” she added. “So that’s sort of where I was on this, and that then completed the EP and it felt really good.”
The music video featured clips from Ella’s childhood with her parents and family.
“I really wanted it to also be a celebration of life,” she explained. “I think that’s so important, even when you lose someone, for it to be a celebration of their life [because] you got the chance to be with that person for as long as you did and you got to have these memories.”
John also welcomed son Jett with Kelly in 1992. Jett died in January 2009 at age 16.
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