Comedian Rob Schneider has publicly asked his daughter, singer Elle King, to forgive his shortcomings as a parent, one week after she spoke about their “very toxic” relationship.
During an interview with Tucker Carlson last week, Schneider was asked to comment on King’s earlier statements about him, including that the father-daughter pair have a fractured relationship.
While a guest on Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast, King said Schneider is “just not nice.” The 35-year-old Ex’s & Oh’s singer condemned Schneider’s anti-LGBTQ2 views and accused him of sending her to “fat camp” as a child.
Sitting across from Schneider, Carlson breached the subject first and asked the ex-Saturday Night Live cast member to address the “family tragedy” of his daughter “going after” Schneider publicly.
“It’s fun being a parent, isn’t it?” Schneider, 60, joked.
The comedian turned to the camera to speak directly to King.
“I just want to tell my daughter, Elle, I love you and I wish I was the father in my 20s that you needed,” he said. “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,” Schneider continued, speaking of his grandchild, born in 2021. “I wish you the best. I feel terrible. I just want you to know I don’t take anything you say personally.”
Schneider said he loves King “completely” and only wants her “to be happy and to heal from this.”
King is the daughter of Schneider and ex-spouse model London King.
She denounced her father’s political views on Bunnie XO’s podcast and said she’s gone “four or five years without talking to my dad.”
Schneider has developed a controversial reputation in recent years, often to do with disparaging LGBTQ2 rights and opposition of the COVID-19 vaccine.
In June, Schneider’s appearance at a fundraiser for the Hospitals of Regina Foundation led to an apology from the organization after the comedian’s set reportedly included transphobic, misogynistic and anti-vax jokes.
A month later, Schneider provoked ire when he posted to X that he was outraged by the Olympic opening ceremony, which saw drag queens and dancers posed in tableau around a table.
“I am sorry to say to all the world’s greatest athletes, I wish you all the best, but I cannot watch an Olympics that disrespects Christianity and openly celebrates Satan,” Schneider wrote. “I sincerely hope these Olympics get the same amount of viewers as CSPAN.”
On the podcast hosted by Bunnie XO, the wife of singer Jelly Roll, King made it clear she does not share Schneider’s views.
“Right now, we’re not flowing. I disagree with a lot of the things that he says,” King said of her father. “You can want someone to change so much and ultimately you can’t control anyone else’s actions, you can’t control people’s feelings. All you can control is how you react and what you do with your feelings.”
King used the podcast appearance as an “opportunity to say that I disagree” with Schneider.
“I do not agree with what he says,” she continued. “I believe in all forms of love. And I just believe in anyone finding their happiness and their joy in whatever way, whatever capacity that is. There are no politics when it comes to love.”
King also said Schneider twice sent her to “fat camp” when she was a pre-teen.
“I was a really, really heavy child,” King recalled. “It’s so awful. But like that’s where he sent me to. I went two summers in a row. I was 11 and 12.”
King said she was fed “a slice of turkey and steamed vegetables” for every meal at the camp, and was made to “work out all day long.”
She described the experience as traumatizing and said it marked the start of her tumultuous relationship with Schneider.
(NOTE: The clip below contains foul language.)
King said she never received career help from Schneider because he “didn’t have a very good reputation.”
“I don’t want to be associated with him,” she admitted. “He’s just not nice.”
King revealed she was not close with Schneider when she was growing up and accused him of forgetting “about every single birthday.”
She said she was raised by her mother and her stepfather, Justin Tesa.