Ron Howard shares harrowing video of wife Cheryl’s hair catching on fire while blowing out birthday candles
Director Ron Howard and his family had an almost harrowing start to the holiday with a bizarre fire.
The 70-year-old director – who recently reunited with his Happy Days co-star Henry Winkler at the Emmys – shared a video of the accident on Instagram last week.
The filmmaker celebrated his wife Cheryl’s 71st birthday a few days before Christmas.
He shared a video of himself holding a large birthday cake with chocolate icing as his wife Cheryl blew out the candles, although her shoulder-length auburn hair briefly caught fire from one of the lit candles.
She quickly jumped back and put out the flame with some help from family, while Ron playfully said, “You burned your hair a little.”
Director Ron Howard and his family had an almost harrowing start to the holiday with a bizarre fire.
The filmmaker celebrated his wife Cheryl’s 71st birthday just a few days before Christmas.
He shared a video of himself holding a large birthday cake with chocolate icing as his wife Cheryl blew out the candles, although her shoulder-length auburn hair briefly caught fire from one of the lit candles.
“Can you believe that?” Cheryl said as her daughter Paige made sure the flames were completely out.
“Did you catch it on camera?” she asked as her husband Ron began clapping and other family members added, “You survived.”
The video targeted Ron and Cheryl’s other children, actress/filmmaker Bryce Dallas Howard, Jocelyn Howard and Reed Howard, who were quite stunned.
Cheryl’s son-in-law, actor Seth Gabel (Bryce’s husband of 18 years) could hardly believe it himself and covered his mouth with both hands during the video.
‘You know what? My hair was a little dry,” Cheryl admitted as the family couldn’t help but laugh at the accident.
‘I almost had a serious accident last night at Cheryl’s family birthday. Wow! #AllsWellThatEndsWell and I wish everyone a safe and wonderful holiday 2025,” Howard said in the caption of his post.
The post has racked up more than 12,000 likes and dozens of comments, including one who joked that the video could be a sequel to Howard’s 1991 firefighter drama Backdraft.
The happy couple will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary this coming June.
“Can you believe that?” Cheryl said as her daughter Paige made sure the flames were completely out.
Cheryl’s son-in-law, actor Seth Gabel (Bryce’s husband of 18 years) could hardly believe it himself and covered his mouth with both hands in the video
‘You know what? My hair was a little dry,” Cheryl admitted as the family couldn’t help but laugh at the accident
Last month, Ron shared a throwback photo of the couple from the 1970s at a dance party they attended.
‘This comes from the Backwards dance where the girl asks the guy out. “Cheryl made that dress from a store-bought pattern, if I remember correctly,” he began.
“I’ve written a lot about our early love story at hc.com/TheBoys. That’s a memoir that Clint and I wrote about our upbringing in and around Hollywood,” he added.
He also recently spoke about working with then-author and now Vice President-elect J.D. Vance when he directed the adaptation of Vance’s novel Hillbilly Elegy.
The filmmaker said he was “very surprised and disappointed by a lot of the rhetoric I read and hear.”
‘People do change, and I suppose they do. Well, it’s registered. When we spoke around the time I knew him, he was not involved in politics and did not claim to be particularly interested. So that was then,” Howard said.