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Hubie Halloween [3] and Modern Family star Julie Bowen's home life is a little different from the lives her characters have on screen. For one, she said in 2016 that her real family is far less organised than her Modern Family family [4]. With three boys at home, we get it! Julie loves to rave about her sons — and also loves to poke fun at them. She once told Jimmy Fallon [5] about the stupid things they do [6], but her voice is always filled with love when she shares stories. Ahead, get to know her boys a little better!
Oliver Phillips
Oliver Phillips was born April 10, 2007. He is Julie Bowen's oldest son with her ex-husband Scott Phillips. He and his younger brothers are very close, always hanging out and horsing around, according to Julie. She told Us Weekly in 2016 that there's a lot of roughhousing around her home with all three of the boys together [8]. "The great thing about boys is that they can be really mean and horrible to each other and two minutes later, they don't even remember it. I don't want to sexually stereotype anybody, but I grew up with three girls. We hold grudges!" She also said that Oliver is not into sports but enjoys reading, especially books with "boy humour." And when asked by Today in 2016 how much she adores her children, Julie simply said, "They own me."
John and Gustav Phillips
Twins John and Gustav Phillips were born May 8, 2009. They are Julie Bowen's youngest sons with her ex-husband Scott Phillips. The boys mostly go by Johnny and Gus. A year after the twins were born, Julie told Us Weekly that Oliver was struggling with having younger brothers [9]. "He is my first and is always going to have a very special place in my heart. But he has not come around to understanding the beauty of his brothers. He will, eventually, but we just have to try and make sure he doesn't kill them."
Julie was actually pregnant with the twins [10] when she started filming Modern Family, so they grew up right alongside the show for 11 years. The two boys, despite being twins, don't look alike and have completely different personalities. Julie told Jimmy Fallon in 2018 that Johnny just loves to be upside down [11]. She would frequently find him standing on his head or watching TV upside down. Johnny is also the son that Julie couldn't identify as her own [12] when Jimmy Kimmel blindfolded her in 2016 and asked her to pick out her own kids from a crowd just by touching their faces. When she got to Johnny, she said he smelled too clean and couldn't be hers! She was quick to pick out Gus, though, as well as Oliver. She jokingly told the audience that Johnny — as a twin — was an afterthought.