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 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 related to Amercian actor and singer Travis Horn, who has recently launched his music career.

Career
Curriculum formed in 2006 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 spent two non-consecutive weeks at #1 on the UK Albums Chart.

Solo career and reality television
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.

In January 2014, it was announced that van Cleef and fourteen of his half-siblings had signed with the American E! Network to launch their own reality show which will focus on their family relationship and dynamic while living in a mansion in the Netherlands, the home of van Cleef's ancestry.

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.

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. Though currently single, in 2014, rumors began circulating that singer Nicola might me taking an interest in him.

van Cleef is known on various gossip sites for having a fondness in casual and unprotected sex and wild parties, something he "somewhat" denied on a Dutch television interview in 2014 when he stated "I like partying and I love the ladies. Nothing too extreme or crazy though. There's nothing wrong with partying and ladies, though."

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.

Discography
see Curriculum discography