Rob Schneider has a message for his estranged daughter Elle King days after the “Ex's & Oh's” singer detailed her strained relationship with the comedian.
“I wanted to tell my daughter Elle, ‘I love you and I wish I could have been the father you needed when I was 20,’” Schneider said in a recent interview. “Clearly I wasn’t and I hope you can forgive my shortcomings. I love you completely.”
“The Hot Chick” and former “Saturday Night Live” star broke her silence on her daughter’s revelations in an interview with former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson published Wednesday. Earlier this week, King said on a Monday episode of Bunnie XO’s “Dumb Blonde” podcast that she decided early in her singing career that she didn’t “want to be associated” with her father, saying he was “very toxic” during her childhood.
The 35-year-old singer, who Schneider shares with ex-wife and actress and model London King, said she was raised primarily by her mother and stepfather. But when she did spend time with Schneider, King said it wasn't fun at all. “If I ever spent a summer with my dad, it would be on a film set… I would get lost in the chaos,” King said.
The singer said she was scolded and left out on set. She added that her father had a habit of forgetting her birthday and that when she was a pre-teen, “he sent me to fat camp.”
“One year I got in trouble because I sprained my ankle and I didn’t lose weight. It was very toxic and stupid,” King said, adding: “It got to the point where I didn’t want to spend the summer with him.”
The tension between Schneider and King was not limited to the singer’s childhood. When she released her first album, “Love Stuff,” in 2015, King said her upbringing and her relationship with Schneider became a topic of interest.
“People started asking about my father. My father called me and said, ‘Don’t talk about me in the press,’” King said. She said she ignored that warning.
On Monday's episode, she criticized Schneider for his conservative views, “talking shit about drag and [being] “I am a classical liberal from the 1970s, which makes me a true conservative today,” Schneider said in September.
The Queen stressed that she did not agree with her father's views. “He never helped me. I did not want his help,” she added.
Schneider said she felt “terrible” but would neither confirm nor deny her daughter’s claims. “I just want you to know that I don’t take anything you say personally,” she said.
“I love her and all I want for her is for her to be happy and recover from this,” Schneider told Carlson.
King is the eldest of Schneider's three children. After two years of marriage, Schneider and London King divorced in 1990. He was married to Helena Schneider from 2002 to 2005. Schneider married producer Patricia Azarcoya Arce, with whom he has two daughters, in 2011.
