Highlights
- Dylan Sprouse and his supermodel girlfriend Barbara Palvin got married in a private Hungarian ceremony.
- Dylan's estranged mom, Melanie Wright, was noticeably absent from the wedding photos, raising questions about their strained relationship.
- Dylan and Cole's childhood was affected by their mother's addiction and mental illness, leading to their removal from her custody and a fractured relationship.
Former Disney Channel heartthrob Dylan Sprouse and his supermodel girlfriend Barbara Palvin have been basking in matrimonial bliss since their July 2023 wedding. The twosome exchanged their vows in a hush-hush Hungarian ceremony attended by over 100 of their close family and friends, including Dylan’s twin brother, Cole Sprouse.
Conspicuously absent from the numerous snapshots of the lavish nuptials shared by the couple was Melanie Wright; Dylan Sprouse’s estranged mom. So, has the passage of time driven such an irreparable wedge between the Disney Channel alum and his mom that she was deliberately excluded from the ceremony?
Dylan Sprouse And His Mother, Melanie Wright Have A Complicated Relationship
Dylan Sprouse might have found global acclaim starring in Disney's award-winning sitcom, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, but that doesn't mean his life has always been easy. As it'd later come to light through his twin brother Cole Sprouse's Diary of a CEO interview, the now 31-year-old was more or less thrust into child stardom against his will by his mother, Melanie Wright.
“My mother was — still is — the tortured artist type. She struggled with, in many different ways, her place in the world,” Cole revealed. “I think she found a tremendous amount of self-identity through motherhood and tried to turn it into a profitable business at the same time, which for identical twin boys going into acting is [an] economic loophole — there are labor laws that can be incredibly profitable, so that’s what she did.”
As the twin brothers’ careers took off, Melanie, ravaged by addiction and mental illness, went into a devastating spiral, consuming a vast majority of the earnings accrued by Cole and Dylan from their early television and film endeavors. The dire turn of events eventually culminated in the twins being forcibly removed from her care.
“When my father was given forced custody, we had pretty much lost everything from the youngest parts of our career,” Cole revealed during a March 2023 interview with the Call Her Daddy podcast. “That would be Friends and Big Daddy. My mother was an incredibly wonderful and artistic woman, but she was financially the most irresponsible person ever.”
Was Melanie Wright Invited To Dylan Sprouse’s Wedding To Barbara Palvin?
With a relationship spanning five years, Barbara Palvin and Dylan Sprouse had ample time to get acquainted with each other’s families before tying the knot. By 2019, Sprouse had already introduced Palvin to his twin brother, Cole, and had the opportunity to meet her parents on several occasions.
“I wasn’t nervous to meet her parents, but the truth is that there is a language barrier, obviously,” Cole said of meeting Palvin’s Hungarian parents. “Her mother speaks a very tiny bit [of English], and I am not proficient in Hungarian. I’m trying, but learning is definitely an overstatement.”
It remains unclear whether Dylan got around to introducing Palvin to his mother. However, it’s quite plausible that the Big Daddy alum chose to leave his estranged mother out of his relationship, especially considering that she was still lamenting about being “abandoned” by her sons on Instagram as of November 2020.
“Sometimes parenting from a far (since I am the ABANDONED fall MOM/ girl the one they =(MY SONS MY X THE LAWYERS ETC) USE as the blame for EVERYTHING,” she wrote at the time. “I have to PARENT on social media."
When the duo finally came around to tying the knot, it seemed quite plausible that Melanie would be among those in attendance. “It’s gonna be a big event, with both of our parents meeting for the first time, too,” Dylan revealed to V Magazine in June 2023, just a month prior to his Hungarian nuptials.“
Though incredibly private, snapshots of the Hungarian ceremony were ultimately revealed in Vogue. Cole, Dylan's brother, alongside his girlfriend Ari Fournier, as well as his father Matthew, made multiple appearances in the snapshots, evidently enthralled by the wedding festivities. Notably absent from these pictures, however, was Melanie Wright.
While it's quite likely that Melanie was among the 115 guests present at the wedding, it’s a bit peculiar that she wasn't as prominently featured in the snapshots as Dylan’s brother, Cole and his father, Matthew.
Does Dylan Sprouse Have A Relationship With His Mom, Melanie Wright?
From all indications, Dylan Sprouse's relationship with his mother, Melanie Wright permanently fractured after he and his twin brother, Cole, were forcibly removed from her custody at the tender age of 10.
As Cole later disclosed during his March 2023 interview with the Call Her Daddy podcast, Melanie has been absent from the twins' lives for years, with neither him nor Dylan inclined to maintain a relationship with her.
“In truth, she lost her mind,” Cole shared. “I think it was the consequence of some weird alchemy of addiction and mental instability, and it’s probably the greatest wound in my life, and also the greatest driving force for my continuing in this industry. I miss her a lot. She was an incredibly beautiful and artistic woman.”
That said, The Suite Life of Zack And Cody alum doesn’t appear to have completely wiped memories of his mom from his mind. In a 2020 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Dylan revealed that his relationship with Melanie inspired his ‘Sun Eater’ comic book; a passion project described by Amazon as “a dark metaphor for drug addiction, and also how these things pass on to your children."
"My own mother is influencing the main character, basically one for one in a lot of ways," he explained. "His interactions with other characters, his compulsions, his ability or inability to kind of navigate the world around him is really all informed by my real-life happenings that I've encountered with my own mother."
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