Rob Lowe's son was shocked when he found out about his dad's sex tape through a friend at school

Depending on what generation you're from, you'll probably know the actor Rob Lowe from somewhere different.

You might have been there from the beginning to watch him emerge in his 'brat pack' days, or perhaps you recognise him from 90s cult classic Wayne's World.

Speaking of which, fans think that a third one of those movies is on the way and are holding their breath for some kind of grand reunion.

Anyway, back on the subject of Rob Lowe - if you hadn't known him from some of his earlier work, then you might have seen him as the ever-chirpy Chris Traeger on Parks and Recreation.

However, when the actor was 24, he ended up being caught in a sex tape with a 22-year-old woman and a 16-year-old girl, and his son John Owen Lowe says he learned about the incident from a classmate at high school.

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In a joint interview with Men's Health, the father and son duo addressed the sex tape scandal and John Owen said someone at school was the one to tell him about it.

He said: "I was in eighth grade or freshman year of high school, and some kid said, 'You know, your dad has a sex tape online'. I was like, 'What?'

"You know what it’s kind of like? Santa Claus. I don't think most parents ever have that moment where they sit the kids down and go, 'Okay, we’ve got to tell you something'."

"A kid just figures it out. There weren't milestone markers, like, 'Okay, he’s 16 now, time for them to learn about this part of our life!"

Rob said that 'Wikipedia and Google took care of that for us' as far as informing his son about certain parts of his life, and as John Owen got older he found that more and more people wanted to talk to him about his dad.

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He said it 'made me so uncomfortable that I wanted to move as far away from that as possible' and tried other career paths beyond acting.

However, John Owen found that the call to acting 'just kept bubbling up' before he ended up landing a writing gig on TV show 9-1-1 Lone Star, which dad Rob was starring in.

The pair have since worked together more closely on upcoming TV series Unstable, which they both perform in and co-created.

In other interviews Rob has said that the sex tape was 'the best thing that ever happened to me' as he credits it with being the cause of him kicking his alcoholism where he's been sober for decades.