'I'm the hated son': Ryan O'Neal's son Griffin not invited to funeral as he's buried beside Farrah Fawcett

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Ryan O'Neal was buried next to his longtime partner Farrah Fawcett but three of his four children were not present at the actor's funeral.

Out of Ryan's four children, only one showed up for his funeral ceremony, while his other actor son Griffin O'Neal insisted he was not even invited.

The Oscar-nominated actor died on December 8, 2023, in Los Angeles from congestive heart failure at the age of 82.

He was buried on Saturday, December 23, next to his longtime partner, Farrah Fawcett, whose acquaintances claim she preferred to be cremated and have her ashes sent to Texas rather than be buried.

Ryan O'Neal and son Griffin had a tumultuous relationship

Ryan's two children with his first wife Joanna Moore are Tatum O'Neal and Griffin, 59, the actress's younger brother.

Griffin drove 2,000 miles from his current Houston, Texas, home to learn that the funeral service would not take place until the weekend following Christmas. Griffin claimed to the New York Post after the ceremony that he was not informed of the funeral service.

"I wasn’t even invited to send him off," he told The Post.

"I’m the hated son who told the truth. Dark times in this family. Love means never having to say you’re sorry — and Ryan never did, to anyone," Griffin stated.

The memorial was arranged by 56-year-old LA sportscaster Patrick O'Neal, who had been close to his father in recent years. Only around 25 people showed up, including Patrick's mother, 78-year-old actress Leigh Taylor-Young, who was Ryan's second wife.

According to Daily Mail, Ryan and his son Griffin had a tumultuous connection from their early years.

As Griffin put it in a 2015 PEOPLE interview, "My life has been a reign of drug and alcohol degradation. I had to self-medicate my entire life because there was pain everywhere. There were drugs everywhere in my family all day, every day."

Griffin, who briefly pursued an acting career decades ago, has experienced his own drug-related issues and run-ins with the authorities, including a 2011 prison term for hitting another vehicle while intoxicated. He claims to be sober now.

Griffin previously claimed in a 2009 Vanity Fair interview that his father gave him cocaine when he was only 11 years old.

"He was a very abusive, narcissistic psychopath. He gets so mad he can't control anything he's doing," Griffin claimed at the time.

Griffin alleged that he had not spoken to his father in 17 years, since the two got into a fight at Ryan's Malibu house in 2007, per The Post.

Ryan allegedly pointed a revolver at Griffin after he flung a fireplace poker at his father.

Farrah Fawcett's friends claimed she never wanted to be buried in LA

Longtime friends of Fawcett, who died following her battle with anal cancer, claimed she was never interested in being buried in Los Angeles.

Two of the late actress' friends informed The Post that she preferred cremation, similar to her mother Pauline. She desired the return of their ashes to their native Texas.

Fawcett's undergraduate boyfriend from the University of Texas, Greg Lott told The Post, "She never wanted a burial or a monument where people could come gawk at her."

"Ryan created this narrative like it was this big love story and they (Ryan and his lawyers) took over her life at the end, sedating her and forging documents," Lott added.

Since she died in 2009 at the age of 62, Fawcett's huge monument in the celebrity-heavy Westwood Village Memorial Park had strangely remained unfilled except for her name at the top, awaiting the addition of Ryan O'Neal's name below.

In the late 1970s, Ryan and 'Charlie's Angels' actress Fawcett began dating, and in 1985, they welcomed their son, Redmond. The two were a couple from 1979 to 1997 until Ryan was discovered having an affair with actress Leslie Stefanson.

Tatum, Ryan's daughter, said that her father abused Fawcett physically after they broke up.

Despite being one of Hollywood's most powerful couples in the 1980s and 1990s, Ryan and Fawcett were thought to have lost their golden glow by the time of her death.

Lott and others contended that Ryan, whose violent and erratic conduct overshadowed his long acting career, used manipulation in his relationship with Fawcett in her final years.

Ryan allegedly created the impression that they had an eternal affair—a story that echoed the plot of his most well-known film, 'Love Story,' released in 1970.

In 2001, Fawcett and Ryan resumed their romantic relationship.