Rob Lowe’s Son John Owen Shares Why He Had a Mental Breakdown While Working With His Dad

When every day is take your kid to work day, life can get a little hectic.

Just ask Rob Lowe's son, John Owen Lowe. The 28-year-old recently recalled the early days of filming his and his dad’s comedy series Unstable, admitting things got off to a rocky start for him.

"Two weeks into filming the first season," John Owen told Andy Cohen on the July 25 episode of his SiriusXM Radio show Andy Cohen Live. "I had a legitimate little mental breakdown."

"I walked off set and I went into my trailer and I went, 'Oh s--t,'" he recalled. "I was trying to become my own person and get distance away from him and I am now his costar. My face is next to his on a one-sheet and I will be doing press with him. It was like all these realizations dawned on me."

John Owen, the youngest of Rob and wife Sheryl Berkoff's two sons, said his reps helped him find a "healthy perspective" of the issue.

“Namely this—my dad won’t be around forever," he said. "It’ll be amazing that we share this together. And it’s hard to work in the entertainment industry."

But while John Owen cocreated and costars alongside Rob, 60, in Unstable, it wasn’t the first time they worked together on a project. The Grace Point star joined the writers room of his dad’s other show, 9-1-1: Lone Star, in its debut season in 2020.

"I started as a staff writer. I was the lowest on the totem pole and I worked my way up to story editor and worked hard and learned a lot. But I was going insane," John Owen explained. "Essentially, you're writing for him and I ended up writing a lot of stuff for him. It drove me bonkers."

The result of that experience was Unstable, which John Owen called a “panic response” to writing for his dad on 9-1-1: Lone Star.

"Part of the reason we created the show was because I was going insane working in proximity to him," he said, "and we thought that was a funny story to tell."

Unstable will return for season two on Netflix August 1.