Wyatt van Cleef

Wyatt Andrew van Cleef is an American drummer, guitarist, singer, and television personality. van Cleef is a member of the popular alternative/indie pop band Curriculum, where he mostly plays drums and guitar, though he also supplies vocals for some of the band's material.

A son of an infamous Dutch playboy heir, van Cleef's family were (and still are) often regulars in the tabloids in the Netherlands and the society pages in the United States. Aside from the success of Curriculum, van Cleef began receiving mainstream media attention after the success of his reality television show with his 24 half-siblings, The Clan, and his various and oftentimes controversial antics, which include wild partying, rampant dating, and promiscuity. Due to his growing reputation for being an "infamous hipster playboy", van Cleef has become a regular mainstay in and on tabloids, blogs, and gossip sites such as The Dirty.

Early life
Wyatt Andrew van Cleef was born in San Francisco, California, United States on 6 March 1991 and was raised there for most of his early childhood. His father is Dutch socialite and billion dollar fortune heir Koenraad van Cleef, who was born in the Netherlands (but raised in San Francisco and New York City) and is known in the Dutch and American tabloids and high society pages for his overindulgent, lavish, and hedonistic "playboy" lifestyle and his penchant and fondness of wild parties, drugs, excessive spending, and sex. His father has had many sexual partners, regardless of gender, gender identification or sexual orientation, but has never been in an actual monogamous relationship. His father openly admits to having narcissistic personality order and brags about it on occasion. Wyatt was primarily raised by his father and had great relationship with him while growing up.

Wyatt's mother, Swiss-Dutch model Marianne van Cleef (nee Egger), is married to his uncle Andreas van Cleef. Wyatt is a product of an affair between Koenraad and Marianne when Andreas was out of town on business, leading Wyatt to be born outside of his mother's and uncle's marriage. Despite the affair and having a baby out of their marriage, Wyatt's mother and uncle continue to be happily married. Wyatt has an excellent relationship with his mother and uncle. Meanwhile, due to the affair, Wyatt's uncle and father continue to feud with the former expressing jealousy over Wyatt not being his son but "only" his nephew.

Including Wyatt, Koenraad has twenty-five children by twenty-four different women, raising fifteen of them; he has a strained relationship with his other ten children. Being of the fifteen children he raised, Wyatt and his fourteen half-siblings grew up mostly in San Francisco. Wyatt is the 24th and second youngest born of his father with his youngest brother, Hilton, being born two months after him in May 1991. Through his mother and uncle, van Cleef has five half-siblings.

When he was eleven, his father moved the family to Connecticut to be near the New York City tri-state area and would attend school in New York City. van Cleef had known his future Curriculum bandmates (Gregory Preston Olivier, Phillip Mandelbaum, and Dana Breckenridge) since they were all infants; prior to that, all four families of the boys had been friends for generations. Despite knowing each other since they were young, the four boys did not consider as friends until they were teenagers.

van Cleef is the cousin of South African actor and singer Travis Horn.

Career
Curriculum formed with van Cleef as the co-founding members of the band along with Gregory Preston Athanasiadis, Phillip Mandelbaum, and Dana Breckenridge. The band released their debut album Syllabus in February 2012 and it reached #1 in the UK while also becoming an international hit. The album spawned four singles which were successful internationally. In 2014, the band released their sophomore album Sophomore which reached #1 in the UK and sold 1.9 million copies there, being certified Diamond by the Urapopstar Recording Association Phonographic Society (URAPS).

Solo career, reality television, and rise to prominence
In February 2013, van Cleef released an one-off solo single that was released digitally only. The single titled "Making Hate" reached #13 on the UK Digital Chart, #99 in the United States, and #6 in the Netherlands, going Platinum in the latter. Though he said that "Making Hate" would be his only single, van Cleef released two more solo singles in the Netherlands. "We're The Clan", the theme song to his hit reality television show The Clan, released in 2014, reached the top five in the Netherlands, while "Can Speak Dutch" (a cover of the Girls Aloud hit "Can't Speak French") reached #1 on both charts in the Netherlands and was also a hit in Flemish Belgium. van Cleef has no plans on releasing a solo album.

In summer 2014, van Cleef and twenty-four of his half-siblings starred in the reality show titled The Clan, which began airing on the American E! Network. Based off a previous concept of the show, which proved to be popular in the Netherlands and involved six of van Cleef's half-sisters, The Clan centered on all of the van Cleef half-siblings living in a huge mansion in Amsterdam, the Netherlands while they bond and explore their family relationship and dynamic. Though critical reception towards the show was mixed, with some calling it the "poor man's Kardashians", The Clan proved to be a massive ratings hit in the Netherlands and the United States.

The success of The Clan and of Curriculum caused van Cleef to gain mainstream attention, as he was soon featured constantly on celebrity news, tabloids, magazines, gossip sites, and blogs because of his antics and personality. van Cleef became known as the "hipster playboy" and grew a reputation for being hedonistic and a womanizer.

Artistry
van Cleef plays the drums and keyboards in his band, while he also sings as well. van Cleef usually sings additional lead and backing vocals.

Vocally, van Cleef is a baritone with a very limited range. He is unable to hit low notes and high notes and can only sing comfortably in the middle of the usual range of a baritone. On studio recordings, due to his limited vocal ability, van Cleef's voice has to be heavily edited by pitch correction software and vocal filters. On live performances, which is rare for the band anyway, van Cleef openly admits to lip-syncing.

Personal life
van Cleef has ten children by ten different women. His first child, a son, was born in 2006 when he was fifteen years old, while his other nine children were born within the same two year period from 2012 to 2014. Initially (and elaborately) explaining the gap between the birth of his firstborn and his other nine children on a car accident that left him "temporarily sterile", van Cleef later admitted that he was celibate and abstinent from sex and partying for six years from 2006 to 2012, before he eventually resumed his promiscuous and hard-partying lifestyle that he had been accustomed to when he became a teenager.

Despite having ten children by ten different women, van Cleef has never been in a monogamous relationship with anyone, including the mothers of his children.

In 2014, van Cleef very briefly dated singer Nicola. Nicola ended the relationship after van Cleef reportedly tried to seduce urban singer/rapper Loretta Lambert, who swiftly rebuffed his advances. The Nicola-Loretta incident essentially brought van Cleef's "hipster playboy" antics to mainstream attention in the UK. Lambert and Nicola have severed ties with not only van Cleef but with Curriculum as well, apparently devastating some of the members in the band.

van Cleef moved with his Curriculum bandmates back to his hometown of San Francisco, California in summer 2014 and is currently residing there. He and his bandmates also share a residence in the UK, when they are there to work on their music.

Persona
van Cleef has been described by celebrity news, tabloids, magazines, gossip sites, blogs, and other various forms of the press and media for being a "hipster playboy" and for having a reputation for being hedonistic, due to his fondness for wild partying, rampant dating, and promiscuity, in which he usually participates in unprotected casual sex. van Cleef stated on a Dutch television interview in 2014 that "I like partying and I love the ladies. Nothing too extreme or crazy though. It's not like I'm doing drugs. I'm just doing me. There's nothing wrong with partying and ladies, though." Due to his reputation, van Cleef has often been nicknamed "Wyatt van Thot" (with "Thot" being an acronym for "That hoe over/out there").

Discography
see Curriculum discography

Singles
A. "Making Hate" was released as a promotional single in the UK; it was not released as an official single there. It peaked at #13 on the UK Digital chart. B. "We're The Clan" did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100 but did peak at #2 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart.