David Foster’s daughter Amy Foster is defending her father against claims he deserted his older children for 2-year-old son Rennie.
After David, 74, took to social media on Friday, January 5, to share a video of his toddler performing on the drums, a few Instagram trolls used the opportunity to critique the music composer’s parenting style and poke fun at his age.
“Lol!!!! He’s the dad…..he’s also got daughters (he abandoned) older than me,” one user wrote in the comments section, while another added, “Dang. He’s 74 and the father of a 3 [sic] year old.”
Amy, 50, quickly jumped in to shut down the allegations. “Hi, I’m a daughter. Absolutely no abandonment,” she replied. “I literally just talked to my dad five minutes ago. Are you sticking up for us? It’s so hard to tell these days.”
Calling the video of Rennie “amazing,” Amy questioned why anyone would take away “something negative” from his incredible talent before pointing toward her and her sisters’ “compliments” elsewhere in the thread.
“We’re great,” she added of the family. “We love our dad. Our dad loves us and we love how our dad is with Rennie.”
David is the father of six children: Allison Jones, 53, Amy,Sara Foster, 42, Erin Foster, 41, and Jordan Foster, 37, and Rennie, whom he shares with wife Katharine McPhee.
While Amy made it clear that his children hold no resentment toward for their dad, David has been candid in the past about feeling absent from his kids’ lives earlier in his career.
“I missed a lot because I didn’t raise them,” he told People in a January 2023 interview. “The geography was really tough. That was my own doing and a regret that I have, but it was what it was and there was no changing it. So I did the best I could, which was quite imperfect at times. Plus, I worked so much. I mean, I’ve made a pound of music in my life.”
Now, however, the Grammy winner is taking a “different” approach to parenting and trying to be more present with his youngest son. “Not better or worse, just different,” he explained. “I still work, I’m still gone a lot, but maybe the time is a little more precious to me because I got more runway behind me than I have ahead of me now.”
Part of that new strategy is being by Rennie’s side as he continues to discover his talent for drumming. David and McPhee, 39, who tied the knot in 2019, have often shared videos of the 2-year-old practicing and learning the craft.
While talking to Us Weekly at the Golden Globes on Sunday, January 7, David shared that he and McPhee don’t have an explanation for Rennie’s incredible talent.
“We play together and I jam with him, but I don’t know where he learned. I swear I’m not a drummer. I have no idea how he learned. So fluid. That’s the real mind-blowing thing,” David told Us, adding, “He’s not even potty-trained.”
McPhee, meanwhile, previously told Us in October 2023 that Rennie’s drumming has really gone to “another level” in the past few months.
“And so now the text messages between me and my husband are changing. ‘This is really crazy, right?’ The control, the obsession of the drive of playing as much as he does throughout the day,” she continued. “I’ll say, ‘Do you want to go to the park? Do you want to go somewhere, like, fun?’ Somewhere where any kid would say, ‘Yeah!’ And he said, ‘I wanna play my drums.’”
McPhee admitted she sort of “pooh-poohed it around” before really taking her son’s passion for music seriously, but it’s now an “undeniable” part of his future. “I don’t know whether he’ll stick with it, but it’s pretty impressive, I will say,” she told Us.
