Birth Mom Of Ted Danson’s Adopted Daughter Is Homeless Ex-Con!
Aug. 23 2019, Updated 4:59 p.m. ET
The biological mother of Ted Danson’s adopted daughter is a homeless alcoholic who’s bounced in and out of jail and mental hospitals.
Kelly Topel was flat broke when she gave up her now-34-year-old daughter, Alexis, for adoption in 1984, and she’s still struggling, according to her ex-husband.
“I haven’t heard from her in ten years, but she’s reached out to our son once in a while,” Topel’s ex — who asked to have his name withheld — told RadarOnline.com. “He told me she’s living on the streets in Tucson, Arizona.”
A RadarOnline.com investigation reveals that 57-year-old Topel has a lengthy list of criminal charges in Tucson dating back to 2009.
She’s been busted for narcotics possession, prostitution, assault and burglary. Her then-second husband, Mark Payne, also filed multiple domestic violence charges against her in 2015.
In one case, a neighbor called police when the couple got into a physical argument over Topel allegedly buying crystal meth. When police checked her records, they discovered she was also wanted on two outstanding warrants and hauled her off to jail.
Topel was also held in mental health facilities for treatment on four different occasions between 2010 and 2015.
Former Cheers star Danson, whose estimated fortune is more than $80 million, hasn’t spoken to the troubled woman in decades.
Topel told RadarOnline.com in 2000 that her letters to Alexis had been returned unopened. She also revealed that she was broke in 1984 when she went to churches in the wealthiest areas of Minneapolis and posted a card asking for a couple to adopt her child.
“A church woman called me and said her friends, a successful actor named Ted and his then-wife, Casey, wanted to talk to me,” she recalled. “I must’ve been one of the only people in America who hadn’t seen an episode of Cheers, so I didn’t know who he was.”
After her daughter was born, the Dansons paid Topel $7,000 for expenses and took the baby home.
“It tore me up, but they seemed like a nice family,” she recalled.
That nice family fell apart in 1993 when Danson had a fling with Whoopi Goldberg and Topel threatened to sue for custody.
“Ted told me over and over how family-oriented he was,” she charged at the time. “But Alexis is in a house that’s breaking up!”
Topel’s efforts went nowhere — and Danson and his ex co-parented Alexis into adulthood.