The father of the seven Cowsills was an alcoholic who beat his children and verbally crucified them. He refused to let one son in the band just because he didn’t like him. He disowned another son when the son crossed him. The father spent the fortune his children earned. Most of the Cowsills have experienced hard adult lives; two died in their 50s.The group, composed of siblings Billy, Bob, Paul, Barry, John, and Susan, plus their mom Barbara, was managed by father William "Bud" Cowsill, a domineering and abusive ex-Navy officer who beat, bullied, and alienated his children and tore the band apart. ... "He ruined the band, and destroyed many of our lives," Bob says.
The real-life story of the Cowsills has been tragic. As detailed in the documentary film "Family Band: The Cowsills Story" - which was co-written by brother Bob Cowsill - the band and the family itself splintered in the early 1970s under the weight of mental and physical abuse by Bud Cowsill, the family patriarch. The watershed moment may have come when Bud Cowsill and oldest brother Bill, the lead singer and guitarist, got into a fight that ended with Bud in jail and Bill fired from the band. In an interview from his home in southern California, Bob Cowsill stated, "We had parents who got married too young, had seven children, like immediately, and had no skills and no tools on what to do with them," Bob says. "So the dad decided to bring in the military because he was in the Navy and that's all he knew."With six sons he had no choice. He didn't know what else to do."The family matriarch, Barbara Cowsill, died of emphysema in 1985 when she was 56. Bud died at age 66 from leukemia.