John Travolta is opening up about raising his children with late wife Kelly Preston.
“My children are … it’s hard to find the words,” Travolta, 72, said in a recent interview with Extra. “But you know, every parent dreams that they’d have these ideal children and they live up and beyond it.”
The actor continued, “I can leave this lifetime knowing I’ve done well, and Kelly knowing that she did well. I really can say that. I’m very proud of them.”
Travolta and Preston tied the knot in 1991 after meeting on the set of their movie The Experts. The couple welcomed daughter Ella in 2000 and sons Jett and Beau in 1992 and 2010, respectively. (Jett died at age 16 in 2009 after suffering a seizure on vacation in the Bahamas.)
Preston died in 2020 after a two-year battle with breast cancer. She was 57.
“Choosing to keep her fight private, she had been undergoing medical treatment for some time, supported by her closest family and friends,” a rep for the family said at the time. “She was a bright, beautiful and loving soul who cared deeply about others and who brought life to everything she touched. Her family asks for your understanding of their need for privacy at this time.”
Travolta has since been candid about navigating the family’s loss while staying strong for his kids. He recently shared the screen with daughter Ella, 26, in Propeller One-Way Night Coach, which he dedicated to Preston, Jett and other family members.
“I’m not made to remain absorbed in the darkness,” Travolta told Italian newspaper La Repubblica in June, admitting “life has certainly tested me” over the years. “I can look at the darkness, but I don’t choose to die in that darkness.”
The Grease star said it’s his “nature is to look for the positive, even in the face of the worst.”
Ella, meanwhile, opened up about following in her parents’ footsteps while celebrating the film’s premiere in May.
“[My dad] and my mom were always supportive of whatever I wanted to do. So even if I decided to do something else in the end, they would have been supportive of that too,” she told People at the time. “But I think that they were happy because they enjoy this job so much, and I have an equal love for it. So I think that they were just happy that I enjoyed doing something that much.”
