Steve Aoki’s 6 Siblings: All About His Brothers and Sisters, Including Supermodel Devon

Steve Aoki and his siblings — Kana Grace, Kevin, Kyle, Echo, Devon and Jenifer — may not have been raised together, but some of them still share a tight bond.

When the DJ was born in 1977, his father, Benihana founder Rocky Aoki, already had three children. He had previously welcomed his daughter Kana Grace and son Kevin with his then-wife Chizuru Kobayashi. Around the time of Steve's birth, Rocky welcomed another son, Kyle, with Pamela Hilberger.

After Rocky’s split with Kobayashi, he went on to marry Hilberger and welcome two more children: daughters Echo and Devon. He later discovered he had one more child, a daughter named Jenifer.

Despite the fact that Steve didn’t have the most traditional upbringing, he says his father made sure that his children spent time together. They joined him on trips around the world and built relationships with one another that have stood the test of time.

“We all became really close, and that’s one thing that my dad did with his family is he put all his kids together and was like, ‘You guys be friends. You guys are brothers and sisters,' ” Steve said on In Depth With Graham Bensinger in 2021.

Here’s everything to know about Steve Aoki’s siblings: Kana Grace, Kevin, Kyle, Echo, Devon and Jenifer.

Steve has two brothers and four sisters

While all of Steve’s siblings have the same father, they share different mothers. When Steve was born in 1977, he became the youngest of three children his father Rocky shared with his then-wife Kobayashi. The couple were already parents to Kana Grace and Kevin.

Meanwhile, Rocky was also in a relationship with Hilberger. The pair welcomed three children before and after their wedding in 1981 — Kyle, Echo and Devon.

Rocky also welcomed a daughter named Jenifer with another woman but didn’t learn about the pregnancy until a paternity suit was filed. Rocky told New York Magazine in 2007 that he had “three kids from three different women at exactly the same time.”

Rocky kept his affairs under wraps for many years until he was in a severe boating accident in 1979. When he woke up from a three-day coma, Rocky told New York Magazine that he found both Kobayashi and Hilberger by his bedside.

While Kobayashi initially forgave Rocky, she ended their marriage when she learned he had a child with Hilberger. They divorced, and Rocky married Hilberger in 1981.

Rocky took his children on trips around the world

Steve and his siblings were primarily raised by their mothers, but Rocky was still involved in their lives. Steve says that Rocky would gather all his children and take them on trips around the world, particularly when he was hosting promotional events for Benihana.

“My mom raised me. But my dad would get all his kids together on trips, and we would have these amazing adventures across the world, hanging out with pops," Steve told NextShark in 2015. "And I learned a lot from him. His work ethic was nothing like I’ve ever seen. He was always putting that drive into his kids."

The DJ continued, “He was just a very interesting person to look up to, being your father and then waking up all of the sudden you are in a hot air balloon track in the middle of a farmland in Belgium or traveling across Japan and watching him do all this other stuff. So I really got to see the inside scoop of his ethic and all of the stuff that he was doing at that time.”

Devon is a well-known model and actress

Steve’s younger sister Devon entered the world of modeling when she was 13 years old after being discovered at a concert in New York. Reflecting on the moment with i-D in 2006, Devon revealed that a photographer approached her while she was trying to get behind the scenes at the event.

“I’d blagged my way backstage at this Rancid concert because I heard The Ramones were there, and I was desperate to meet The Ramones. I was 13," she recalled. "And someone came over and asked if they could shoot me for a story in Interview. And I said I'd do it if they introduced me to The Ramones. And they did."

Within a few years, she skyrocketed to fame in the modeling community. In 1998, she landed her breakout job modeling for Chanel, handpicked by Karl Lagerfeld. Looking back on the experience with Vogue Australia in 2020, Devon said that the fashion designer “saw something in [her] that others didn’t” and for that, she is “forever grateful.”

Not long after, Devon became the face of Versace. She has since appeared on the covers of magazines and in major campaigns for brands including Chanel, Hugo Boss, L'Oréal and Tiffany & Co. Devon has also been featured in music videos as well as films including 2 Fast 2 Furious, Fast Five, Sin City and War.

Kevin has followed in his father’s footsteps as a restaurateur

Growing up, Kevin watched Rocky run his restaurant empire and “wanted to be just like him.” After graduating from college, Kevin began working for his father, helping run restaurants around the United States. As a manager, he occasionally managed his siblings, who worked as bartenders or hosts at Rocky’s restaurants.

Kevin eventually decided he wanted to lead his own establishment. In 1999, he and his father opened the first Doraku Sushi location in Florida — a spot they hoped would attract a younger audience.

“For me, I just envisioned a restaurant that I would like to hang out at — a little cool Japanese sushi bar. So that’s where I started," Kevin said on the Kampai Sugai podcast in 2023. "I was like, ‘What makes me happy? What is somewhere where I would want to hang out?’ "

He continued, "I went from daddy’s teppanyaki restaurant to something more cool, something more relevant, something that attracted the younger audience."

Kevin later opened several more restaurants, rolling out his businesses in clusters in only a few cities like Las Vegas and Honolulu. He eventually founded the Aoki Group, which holds his restaurant portfolio, including 1938 Indochine, Aoki Teppanyaki and Qing Mu Noodle.

Kevin has also collaborated with Steve on several restaurants, including Bluetree Café and Kura Kura Pa.

“Growing up, when Kevin finished college, he went into the restaurant business. I was always in music. My first real job, I was working for Kevin in Dallas,” Steve told Honolulu magazine in 2017. “Kevin kind of ushered me into the family business. He opened up Bluetree, got me involved and said, ‘Let’s work together’ because as a health nut, it makes sense for me.”

Most of Steve’s siblings stay out of the public eye

While Steve has chosen a career in the spotlight, most of his siblings have preferred a quiet life outside the public eye. Although they all had the chance to work in the family restaurant business, they opted to go in different directions.

Kana Grace attended New York University and got her master’s degree from Vanguard University. She now works as a marriage and family therapist at a counseling center in Nevada. She has two daughters named Yumi and Natalie, who have pursued modeling.

Like her sister, Echo also attended New York University. According to her LinkedIn, She went on to serve on Benihana’s board of directors, focusing on marketing. She left the company in 2010 after becoming a mom but later re-entered the workforce as an accountant.

At one point, Kyle was an aspiring movie producer and as the youngest, Jenifer has remained private.

Four of Steve’s siblings were sued by their father Rocky

Before Rocky’s death in 2008, he sued his children amid family financial drama. Issues for the family began in the late 1990s when Rocky pleaded guilty to insider trading, and he stepped down as chairman of Benihana Inc. after his liquor licenses were revoked.

All of his Benihana assets were placed in a trust called Benihana of Tokyo that was managed by three of his children and a lawyer, per Fortune.

Then, in 2002, Rocky married his third wife, Keiko Ono, after knowing her for less than a year. At the time, Rocky was ill and not expected to live long. He kept the marriage a secret for several weeks before finally telling his children.

Worried that Keiko was after their father’s fortune, Kana Grace and Kevin gave Keiko a postnuptial agreement that would require her to renounce her interest in Rocky’s Benihana assets. She declined to sign, and Rocky did not press the issue.

According to the lawsuit that Rocky later filed, the father of seven claimed Kevin hired a private detective to investigate Keiko. While the family drama escalated, Rocky attempted to bring his children together with Keiko by amending his will, he later told New York Magazine. In 2003, he changed the document four times, ultimately giving Keiko control of how 75 percent of his estate would be distributed to his children following his death in the hopes that it would force everyone to get along.

In legal documents acquired by the magazine, Rocky alleged that after the change Kana Grace wrote him a letter saying, “You said this is a way your kids and Keiko will get along. What sick-twisted logic ... None of us are naïve enough to believe that she would give us a penny. It is amazing how far she will go, and how far you let her go.”

After receiving the letter, Rocky officially filed a lawsuit against Kana Grace, Kevin, Kyle and Echo. In the lawsuit, he claimed they “breached their fiduciary duties” when they lost the Benihana of Tokyo Trust’s controlling interest in Benihana Inc.

The family’s stake had previously been reduced from 50.9 percent to 36.5 percent, partially due to the board’s concern about Keiko's potential power. He also claimed they stopped paying him a salary and were trying to “wrest control” of the company.

The legal troubles continued for years, during which Rocky changed his will and disinherited the four children he was suing, according to Fortune. Jenifer was never included in his will, and the other siblings were not able to reach a resolution before Rocky died in 2008.

Steve and Devon fought for control of their inheritance

Following Rocky’s death, Keiko gained sole control of his estate — as well as his legal battles. The disputes continued for years and new cases arose as she appointed herself CEO of Benihana of Tokyo.

In 2014, Rocky's two children, Steve and Devon, who he did not disinherit, had a breakthrough in the case. According to TMZ, a judge awarded Steve and Devon 50 percent of the Benihana of Tokyo trust each, although they would have to wait until they were 45 years old to access the funds as per prior guidelines of the trust.

While Steve turned 45 in November 2022, Devon is still several years from being old enough to access the trust.

In the following years, the brother and sister fought to remove Keiko as a trustee so she couldn’t spend the money in the trust. Steve and Devon continued to petition a judge in 2020, claiming that Keiko had wasted money on gimmicks for the restaurant, per New York Post.

They also alleged that she had spent millions on “reckless” litigation against Benihana Inc. following disputes over the restaurant’s Honolulu location, which was owned by the company but operated by the trust.

Most recently, in March 2024, the motion to remove Keiko as trustee was denied.