Eric Roberts says daughter Emma became the parent he ‘couldn’t’ be
In his memoirs, Eric Roberts praised his daughter Emma Roberts because he has become the type of parent he could not be.
“I loved my daughter with the strength of Hercules, despite my own weaknesses,” wrote 68-year-old Eric Runaway Train: or the story of my life so farpublished on Tuesday, September 17, as reported by Entertainment weekly.
“However, I couldn’t deal with the reality of a baby coming into my life, and I couldn’t handle parenthood!” Erik continued. “I’m still not a father figure. Emma, on the other hand, certainly knows what that role is – now an adult and a mother herself. She is that person for her first child, Rhodes. (Emma, 33, shares son Rhodes, 3, with ex-boyfriend Garrett Hedlund.)
Roberts, who welcomed Emma with ex-partner Kelly Cunningham in 1991 cited his drug addiction as a major factor behind his lack of parenting skills. “The biggest consequence of my drug use was losing Emma,” he wrote. “I was still impossibly poisoned when she was born, which explains everything.”
He added: “I abandoned Kelly when Emma was just seven months old. We’ve been through a lot, and [Kelly] saw me at my very worst – yet she stayed for a while, although she certainly wondered whether or not she should. We both wanted a child – maybe I did more than she did – but we both wanted to be parents.”
He commented: ‘I fell madly in love with Emma from the first minute I saw her,’ adding: ‘For a while we were a nice family, but that didn’t last long. I was in too much trouble.”
Emma, who has had a successful career in Hollywood with iconic roles in shows such as American horror story And Shout queenscredited her confidence to mom Kelly in an exclusive interview with We weekly earlier this year.
Nickelodeon has been home to childhood hits for decades, and kids growing up in the 2000s will never forget the network’s leading ladies. From Amanda Bynes, Emma Roberts and Keke Palmer to Jamie Lynn Spears and Miranda Cosgrove, women had a strong presence on Nick from 2000 to the mid-2010s. Bynes’ comedic legacy stretched from […]
“I feel like my mother was always the one who said, you can do whatever you want. No dream is too big, and I am super grateful for that,” she said Us in June 2024. “Now that I’m in my thirties and have my own son, you just have more insight into the reality of the world.”
Emma added that it was her mother who raised her “to believe I was the best and could do anything,” a belief system she wants to pass on to Rhodes. “You don’t realize how rare that is until you get older,” she said.
