Dean Cain Got Custody Of His Son Christopher After A Nasty Battle With His Ex

Dean Cain may eternally be known for his starring role in "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," but he is a father first and foremost. Cain joined the parenthood club in the early aughts, and his life was never the same. Cain loves raising his "favorite human," as he often boasts on Instagram. "Best part of my day every day," he captioned the January post. As an actor, Cain spends quite a bit of time flying. But that doesn't mean time apart from his son.

Cain seems to take Christopher with him everywhere he goes, which has become a personal joke. Between 2017 and 2018, Cain uploaded several shots featuring Christopher behind him on airport escalators. "ANOTHER day and yet ANOTHER airport. Is this dude following me...?" he captioned one in which Christopher could be seen mean-mugging in the background. For Cain, his son's happiness comes above all else.

That includes the tidiness of his home. "You know that saying 'Momma says don't play ball in the house?' Well, we play," he told People in 2014. "We chase each other, you can walk on virtually any piece of furniture." Cain's attachment to Christopher is certainly strong, but the "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" former host's fatherhood journey didn't start out as he had hoped. For the first decade of his son's life, Cain was embroiled in a custody battle that came to define not only his role as a parent but also his status as an actor.

In the '80s and '90s, Dean Cain was in a series of high-profile relationships. After moving on from Brooke Shields, Cain got involved with beach volleyball player Gabrielle Reece and then country singer Mindy McCready, to whom he was briefly engaged. But it wasn't until he met Spanish "Playboy" model Samantha Torres in 1999 that his life really changed. Cain and Torres became parents to Christopher in June 2000, although the two had separated before she learned about the pregnancy, People reported in October 2003.

When their son was 18 months, Cain and Torres ignited what would become a vicious — or "disgusting," as he put it — custody battle. Cain initially asked for joint custody, but Torres was dead set on preventing it from happening. Instead, she asked for sole custody on the grounds that Cain had a substance abuse issue, which he vehemently denied. To prove he was fit to be a parent, Cain agreed to take frequent drug tests throughout the proceedings. "I'm better at being a father than I have been at anything else in my entire life," he told People.

In May 2003, the court granted Cain and Torres joint custody. But that wouldn't be the end of it. The back-and-forth continued until 2011 when Cain was awarded full custody of Christopher. Becoming a full-time father to his boy was a blessing — but it also came with overarching consequences for Cain and his career. 

While Dean Cain loves being a dad, taking on the role of raising Christopher alone meant he couldn't dedicate as much time to acting. "It affected my career like I can't even explain," he told Fox News in September 2022. Ever since the custody dispute started, Cain had to be selective about the roles he accepted. "For the last 17 years I haven't taken a film that shoots longer than three weeks," he told Bright Lights Film Journal in 2018.

The exception was "Out of Time," which he filmed when he still shared custody with Samantha Torres and she agreed to let him be away for longer. "There have been tremendous projects that I would have loved to have taken — 'Band of Brothers' [2001] was one — but I just couldn't do them. I wasn't available to do them," he explained. While Cain wonders what could have been, he doesn't regret his decision. "As soon as I was presented the choice, it was like, 'I'm going to be a dad," he told Fox News.

Cain's past influenced his decision to prioritize his son. Cain was actually born Dean Tanaka, but he never met his biological father. He was 4 when his mother married Christopher Cain, who adopted him and his brother. "I know how important that was for my life," he detailed. "Nothing in my life has been as big a factor as having my father there to raise me."