Rob Schneider has publicly asked his daughter Elle King for forgiveness after the singer spoke out about their “toxic” relationship.
Schneider, 60, is a former Saturday Night Live comedian whose film work includes 1999’s Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo and 2002’s The Hot Chick.
King, 35, is a singer-songwriter who shot to fame in 2015 with her hit single “Ex’s & Oh’s”. Earlier this week, King made headlines when she criticized her father for “talking s*** about drag” and being “anti-gay rights”. She also revealed he had sent her to a “fat camp”.
During an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, Schneider responded to King’s comments by joking: “It’s fun being a parent, isn’t it?”
He continued: “Well I just want to tell my daughter, Elle, I love you and I wish I was the father in my 20s that you needed. Clearly I wasn’t. I hope you can forgive me for my shortcomings. I love you completely and I love you entirely.
“I just want you to be well and happy with you and your beautiful baby, Lucky. I wish you the best. I feel terrible. I just want you to know I don’t take anything you say personally.”
Last week, King appeared on Bunnie Xo’s Dumb Blonde podcast and spoke candidly about how her relationship with her father had deteriorated.
“I was, like, a really, really heavy child,” she explained. “My dad sent me to fat camp. And then I got in trouble one year because I sprained my ankle and I didn’t lose any weight. Very toxic and very silly.”
The singer said she goes for “four or five years without talking to my dad,” noting that Schneider’s right-wing political opinions are a large factor in the distance between them.
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“I disagree with a lot of the things that he says,” she continued. “You’re talking out of your a** and you’re talking s*** about drag and, you know, anti-gay rights and it’s like get f***ed… He’s just talking out of his a** and I want to use this opportunity to say that I disagree. I do not agree with what he says.”
King further reflected on her difficult relationship with her film star father throughout her childhood.
“If I would ever spend a summer with my dad it would be on a movie set. I would just get lost in the shuffle,” she recalled. “If I ever messed up a shot, if I ever was talking, I would get in f***ing trouble.”
“My dad forgot about every single birthday,” King added. “I spent my 18th birthday in a summer school and they brought me cupcakes and I came home and my dad forgot my birthday.”
She was mainly raised by her mother, model London King, and her stepfather, Justin Tesa, in Ohio, but said in recent years had tried to reconnect with her father as an adult.
She noted she would “try every different angle” to repair their estranged relationship, saying: “I would try letters, I would try soft, I will try yelling. He’s just like, ‘well see look you’re yelling.’ ”