Emma Robert’s father Eric defines the father-daughter relationship as complicated.
On April 5, in the episode of Really Famous With Kara Mayer Robinson, “because they don’t get any of it. So, they have their own take, whatever that is”. He further noted, “It’s only complicated through outside eyes”. He also raved about Emma and added, “I’m so proud of my kid”.
Eric further explained, “I was a wash rag. I was not to be depended on emotionally whatsoever”.
Describing himself as a “car wreck” at the time, Eric noted that he now takes “full responsibility for it”. Despite the difficulties in his and Emma’s relationship over the years, he always thinks back to her birth and how it changed his life completely. As Eric recalled, newborn Emma was “screaming her head off” until he started singing “Happy Birthday” to her, a song he also sang while Kelly was pregnant.
“She stopped screaming and tried to find my face with her little blind eyes,” the Dark Knight actor remembered. “It was the most complete moment maybe I have ever had in my life. That something I did was recognized by a brand-new creature who had my DNA. Oh my god. And there she was, and she already knew me”. He continued, “She tried to find me. It was magic. And I’ll always have that”.
Eric has been candid about his relationship with Emma, detailing that “the loss of relationship with my daughter” was the toughest period of his life.
During a podcast he noted, “There’s not a pain, there’s a sadness for the, most likely, misunderstandings that I’ll have forever because we’re human”
Though he’s been sober since 1995, Eric revealed he gained a new perspective on his “sadness” over Emma who shares 5-year-old son Rhodes Robert Hedlund with ex Garrett Hedlund in recent years.
“I started accepting that about myself with the birth of my grandchildren,” explained Eric, who has two other grandkids through his stepchildren with wife Eliza Roberts, adding that his oldest granddaughter “looks like Emma.”
In fact, the Runaway Train actor denied that he has bad blood with American Horror Story actress, who Eric shares with ex Kelly Cunningham. Still, the 69-year-old acknowledged challenges in his fatherhood journey. As Eric put it, he was not in a good place emotionally when Emma, now 35, was born because of his drug abuse.