Emma Roberts’ Relationship With Dad Eric Roberts, Everything He’s Said

It was also a difficult time in Eric’s life as he noted he was battling depression as well as drug addiction.

“The biggest consequence of my drug use was losing Emma,” he wrote in his 2024 memoir Runaway Train: Or, The Story of My Life So Far. “I was still impossibly coked up when she was born, which explains everything.”

Eric and Kelly split months after Emma’s birth, and Kelly was awarded custody. In the book, Eric shut down rumors he and his Oscar-winning sister Julia Roberts had a “giant falling out” over her support of Kelly getting custody.

“I never saw myself as someone who deserved to have physical custody of Emma, not in a million years,” he added. “We both knew better than that. Kelly never claimed I was trying to get physical custody of Emma, so therefore, Julia never sided with Kelly in a custody fight. There really was no custody fight.”

While Eric wrote that Julia and their sister Lisa had hopes he would have “calmed” down after becoming a parent, he admits it didn’t happen right away.

“It’s not a child’s job to make you stable,” he acknowledged. “Julia and Lisa sided with Emma and her well-being—but so did Kelly and I. The difference being that I just couldn’t raise Emma on my own. We were a nice little family for a while, but it didn’t last. I was in too much trouble.”