Eric Roberts insisted his bond with his daughter Emma Roberts is not as strained as it might seem.
In the April 5 episode Really Famous with Kara Mayer Robinsonhe runaway train The actor addressed speculation about tension with the American horror story star.
He said: “It’s only complicated through outside eyes, because they don’t get any of it. So, they have their own opinion, whatever it may be.”
The 69-year-old was quick to praise Emma, adding: “I’m so proud of my daughter.”
The actor admitted that he was not in a good emotional place when Emma was born, due to drug abuse.
“I was a washing rag,” he confessed. “I couldn’t be depended on emotionally at all.”
Roberts, who at the time called himself a “car wreck,” said he now takes “full responsibility” for those struggles.
Despite the difficulties, he remembered a life-changing moment at Emma’s birth: when he sang “Happy Birthday” to her, the newborn stopped crying and tried to find her face.
“It was magical,” he said. “And I’ll always have that.”
Roberts has been candid about the pain of losing closeness with Emma.
He called it the most difficult period of his life.
“There is no pain, there is sadness for the, most likely, misunderstandings [that] “I will have it forever,” he said in a 2024 interview.
Although sober since 1995, Roberts explained that the birth of his grandchildren helped him come to terms with that sadness.
Emma shares son Rhodes, 5, with ex Garrett Hedlund, while Roberts has two other grandchildren through his wife Eliza’s children.
She noted that her oldest granddaughter “looks like Emma,” which gave her a new perspective.
For Roberts, his bond with Emma remains defined by pride, love and the memory of their first connection.
It is a reminder that, despite the challenges, she will always be the light in his eyes.
