John Travolta Remembers His Late Son Jett on What Would Have Been His 33rd Birthday

John Travolta is remembering his late son Jett on what would have been his 33rd birthday.

The Pulp Fiction actor, 71, took to Instagram on Sunday to mark Jett’s birthday, sharing a throwback photo of his young son in his arms, playing with his father’s ears.

“Happy birthday Jett – I miss you so much!” Travolta wrote in the caption. “Love you forever!”

Jett tragically died at age 16 in January 2009 after suffering a seizure and hitting his head on a bathtub while on vacation with his family in the Bahamas.

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The Grease star previously spoke about mourning his son’s death while onstage at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane, calling it “the worst thing that’s ever happened in my life” in February 2014, as per the BBC. “The truth is, I didn’t know if I was going to make it,” he said at the time. “Life was no longer interesting to me, so it took a lot to get me better.”

Travolta shared Jett, daughter Ella, 25, and son Benjamin, 14, with his late wife, Kelly Preston, who died in July 2020 at the age of 57 following a battle with breast cancer.

The Saturday Night Fever star also spoke about grief after the loss of his beloved wife. “I learned that mourning someone, dealing with grief is something very personal,” he told Esquire Spain in April 2021. “Mourning is individual and experiencing your own journey is what can lead you to heal. Your grief is different from another person’s journey.”

“The most important thing you can do to help another person when they are in mourning is allow them to live through it and not complicate it with yours,” he continued. “Let’s say you lose someone and at the funeral you are very sad, then another person approaches you who is feeling more sadder and then doesn’t leave enough space for you to mourn. It would be like two boats plummeting to the bottom. That is my experience.”

While it was “great to have company” while mourning the loss of his wife, Travolta said it sometimes turned into him helping his companions as opposed to working on himself.

“You don’t know how many people approached me…and then I felt saturated with everyone’s sadness that I didn’t know what to do,” he continued, advising that those who suffer a loss first “go to a place where you can mourn without any interference.” He added, “If I die tomorrow, the last thing I want to see is everyone around me sinking.”