Eric Roberts responds to Emma Roberts’ complaints about her Nepo baby

Actress Julia Roberts arrives with her niece, actresses Emma Roberts (R) and Shirley MacLaine (L) at the “Valentine’s Day” Los Angeles premiere on February 8, 2010 at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California. AFP PHOTO / GABRIEL BOUYS (Photo credit should read: GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP via Getty Images)

To mark the release of her new film, Emma Roberts is giving a new round of interviews in which she sharply criticizes the label “Nepo baby” and firmly denies that she has gained any career advantages in Hollywood as the niece of megastar Julia Roberts or as the daughter of veteran film and television actor Eric Roberts.

“I’ve lost more jobs than I’ve gained because of being in the industry,” Roberts told Flaunt magazine. “People have opinions and sometimes they may not be good opinions about people in the family. I know I’ve never gotten a job because of it. I’ve definitely lost a few jobs because of it.”

Roberts recently received support from her father for her claim that she has not benefited from her famous connections. In a new interview with entertainment journalist Steve Kmetko, Eric Roberts was asked if he had “anything to do with his daughter’s success,” Entertainment Weekly reported.

“Absolutely nothing. Except that I gave her that name,” said the 68-year-old star of “Pope of Greenwich Village.”

During the interview for Kmetko’s podcast “Still Here Hollywood,” Roberts initially said he would not talk about his famous younger sister Julia.

“I love my sister, but I can’t talk about her,” said Eric Roberts. He and Julia Roberts were publicly estranged in the early years of Emma’s life because of Emma’s history of drug abuse and because the “Erin Brockovich” star sided with Roberts’ ex-girlfriend Kelly Cunningham in the custody case. Eric Roberts told People that he and Julia Roberts reconciled in 2004.

Eric Roberts also initially said he would not talk about his 33-year-old daughter, who rose to stardom with “Scream Queens,” “American Horror Story” and the new romantic comedy “Space Cadet” on Amazon Prime. “My daughter told me not to talk about her,” he said.

According to People Magazine, Emma Roberts keeps her relationship with her father rather private. The two have not been photographed together since childhood, and she neither speaks about him in interviews nor posts about him on social media – unlike her mother, with whom she is reportedly “very close”.

Eric Roberts, for his part, raves about his daughter at every opportunity and, for example, posted an old photo of the two together on Instagram for her 32nd birthday in 2023, as People reported. “Happy birthday, my beloved daughter,” he wrote.

Eric Roberts admitted that he usually says something about his daughter in interviews. “I trip and do it,” he said. That’s what happened on Kmetko’s podcast. He “tripped” in that interview and got a little involved in the “Nepo baby” discourse.

After stressing that he did not help Emma get roles, Roberts praised her talent highly.

“I’m in love with my daughter’s work, so much so that I can’t believe how amazing she’s turned out,” he said. “I’m so proud of her that I can hardly see straight. From her performance in ‘Maybe I Do’ until now, she fills me with pride and I’m like, ‘Oh my God. Here she goes again.’ And I’m just so happy to be her dad because she’s amazing and I’m so proud.”

Emma Roberts, meanwhile, has voiced strong objections to stories and conversations about Nepo babies. In another interview last month, she stressed that the discourse was “sexist” because “nobody” ever “criticised” George Clooney “for being a Nepo baby” because his aunt Rosemary Clooney was a music “icon”.

“I feel like young girls have a harder time with the Nepo baby thing,” she said during the “Table for Two” podcast, Indiewire reported. “I don’t really see people criticizing the sons of famous actors, but they shouldn’t.”

In fact, many sons, grandchildren, nephews and other male relatives of Hollywood greats were given the label “Nepo baby” in the 2022 New York Magazine article that popularized the term after it surfaced on social media. The “Nepo” part of the term is short for nepotism, and the nickname refers to the practice of favoring family and friends in job searches and other opportunities. In the world of entertainment gossip, the term is applied to any aspiring star who may have received help breaking into show business.

Notably, Emma Roberts’ name did not appear in New York Magazine’s story, although it does feature other well-known “Nepo babies” – from long-standing stars like Jane Fonda, Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Dern to Dakota Johnson, Lily-Rose Depp and Riley Keough. The story also mentions Clooney and Michael Douglas as stars who have been “around so long that nobody cares” who their famous relatives are. Other male stars are also mentioned, including Scott Eastwood and Scott Caan, as well as Colin Hanks, John David Washington, Jack Quaid and Deacon Phillippe.

Emma Roberts joked to Flaunt magazine that she might feel insulted that she wasn’t mentioned in the story, but she also said: “It was a cheap trick to put all the celebrity children on the cover of a magazine on baby bodies.”

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