Fans of swimming and Michael Phelps during the 2016 Rio Games have seen plenty of his son Boomer, fiancee Nicole Johnson and mother Debbie in the stands celebrating the now 25-time Olympic medalist, but a previous rocky relationship has kept the patriarch of the Phelps family out of the spotlight.
Fred and Debbie Phelps separated in 1992 and divorced in 1993, when Michael was 9. Phelps' older sisters, Hilary and Whitney, helped their mother raise Michael, but it was his swim coach Bob Bowman who became a father figure for Phelps.
"For me, not having a father always there was hard," Michael told Sports Illustrated last winter.