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Earlier this week, MAGA a-hole and unfunny comedian Rob Schneider made headlines after his daughter, singer Elle King, revealed the ugly side of her childhood at his hands. Rob forgot all of her birthdays, sent her to “fat camp,” and would take her to film sets only to yell at and forget about her. Elle also revealed that the two go “four or five years” without speaking and that when she was trying to get her career off the ground, he called her and told her to keep his name out of her mouth when it came to talking to the press. Basically, Elle confirmed that he’s a toxic jerk of a father.
Rob, for his part, ran right over to the right’s former favorite hype boy, Tucker Carlson. On the August 15 episode of The Tucker Carlson Show podcast, Tucker put on his best constipated-looking serious face and asked Rob about the “family tragedy” of Elle “going after” him publicly. After a sharp, sarcastic laugh with a quip about how parenting is super fun sometimes, Rob launched into the apology his publicist made him practice on the way over to the studio. Someone brought the eye-drops because he even managed to shed a few tears during it too. According to Rob, he loves Elle and is very, very swowwy for being a bad dad.
“It’s fun being a parent, isn’t?” Rob began on an Aug. 14 preview of his interview on The Tucker Carlson Show podcast. “I want to just tell my daughter: Elle, I love you, and I wish I was the father of my 20s that that you needed, and clearly I wasn’t.”
The 60-year-old asked Elle—who shares son Lucky, 2, with Daniel Tooker—to forgive his “shortcomings,” adding, “I love you completely. I love you entirely.”
“I just want you to be well and happy with you and your beautiful baby, Lucky,” he continued. “I wish you the best. I feel terrible, and I just want you to know that I don’t take anything you say personally.”
Tucker was impressed by Rob’s response, asking him how hard it was to not “make any excuses or blame her or attack back.”
“If you love somebody completely,” Rob explained, “you just—I love her. And all I want for her is to be happy and to heal from this.”
Good for him for owning up to being a bad dad, I guess. Obviously, I’m still side-eyeing the hell out of Rob’s apology and the venue in which he chose to make it. Tucker keeps repeating that Elle “attacked” Rob, and like always, completely ignores context and all that. It’s very convenient how the headlines have all suddenly changed to reflect how Rob really loves the daughter who he doesn’t even bother to talk to! If you watch the clip with Tucker (I don’t blame you if you can’t), they talk about her like she’s an unruly teenager that’s acting out and he’s an understanding parent that’s showing her unconditional love. The comments under Tucker’s Instagram account with the clip are exactly the type of comments you’d expect from a group of people who still think highly of Tucker Carlson.
As of Friday morning, Elle hasn’t responded yet, and I’m hoping that’s because she doesn’t want to add any more fuel to this fire. However she posted a segment from her Dumb Blonde podcast interview to her Instagram stories saying she doesn’t agree with her dad’s sh-tty political views. You know, Rob could always try being the dad she needs in her 30s. Whether or not she wants to accept his apology or have a relationship with her dad is completely up to her, but I hope she has a good support system in place. I wonder if he even called her to express his thoughts and regrets. He probably didn’t. What a great dad!
Rob and Charles Windsor are head to head in the competition for World’s Worst Dad!
I’m sure she’s exhausted by his response because she’s seen this kind of manipulation from him her whole life and she knows he dude doesn’t’ do anything out of genuine kindness. So yeah, good job grabbing ahold of the narrative, Rob. Nice work undermining your daughter’s words by pretending to be a decent guy.
Sometimes I’ve seen kids heal so much from hearing something like that even if they never have a relationship with the parent. So regardless of who wrote it, where it was said, and how much he meant it, maybe Elle will take some comfort and healing from this. Or maybe someone else who hears it will. Maybe another parent who needs to say this will be inspired or use the words if they can’t find their own, but want to. Maybe another child will show those words to their parent and say this is what I need/ed you to be for me, if you can we can move forward. It’s pretty well said and I’ll give Rob credit for saying it. I don’t know much about him, so not sure of the situation. But I saw he has younger kids and I’ve also seen sometimes that can make parents realize how far short of the mark they fell with older children and apologize. Elle if you can try not to live a worse life by being upset by another person, even if your parent!
Considering her age, I’d say she’s comes to terms with her childhood & doesn’t need his apology or validation any more.
Or I could be projecting & thinking back on my own (non)relationship with my father.
@anonymous there is nothing healing in his words for a child who grew up in an environment of emotional neglect with a narcissistic parent. He centers himself in the whole thing, like I feel terrible I don’t take this personally. And he puts it on her to ask for her forgiveness. He totally minimizes his impact on her. And lets Tucker Carlson position Elle sharing her truthful story as an attack on him. Zero healing in this one!
Well, he should take her comments personally, in that he’s personally responsible for his behavior. Not taking criticism personally means, “Oh, I understand that it’s not about me; you’re just acting out.”
🎯 I do not think it means what he thinks it means…
The “in my 20s” bit could have been left out. He was 26 when she was born and he was a crappy parent for the 35 years after that 😒😒😒😒
@hollz, exactly. He still made it all about him. He still denied what he did. The remorse is for his reputation and has nothing to do with her.
My kid is still healing from a father like this.
Omg, instead of trying to reach out privately he ran to effing Tucker (rhymes with…) Carlson to “apologize?!” I feel badly for EK.
His apology was good until he said ‘I want you to know I don’t take anything you said personally’. Anyone with a toxic parent knows exactly what that means. Add it to the fact that he went to the Tucker Carlson show to discuss this. What a coward.
If you have a parent like this, please know, it’s okay to cut them out of your life. Your emotional well being is more important than any ‘debt’ people might say you have to the family that raised you. You don’t owe anyone your life.
This actually explains a lot about her and I hope she chooses what’s best for her mental and emotional health. I have a father who likes to do big, public displays of contrition but not the private work so if she grey rocks him I wouldn’t blame her.
Other than the last sentence, this was advertising a decent apology, so kudos to whoever wrote it.
And I can’t help but think that if even a schlemiel like Rob Schnieder can manage to do this, why the hell can’t Brad Pitt manage something similar?
I started listening to her music thanks to the other recent post here. Agree Drunk (and I Don’t Wanna Go Home) is an amazing shower song in addition to X’s and O’s and America’s Sweetheart. What a voice she has!
The comments in my other post about this situation actually made me go listen to more of her music too! There was a story months ago about the Cyrus family drama in which people recommended Noah Cyrus’ music and they were not wrong. It was way better than I’d expected.
I really like Elle King – her first album was so good. She is far more talented than he is.
Some people just suck as parents. And I’m all for the apology, but I definitely have questions about his motivation. Something seems off here, like it’s just manipulation by a classic, boring ass narcissist.