Eric Roberts once claimed responsibility for his sister Julia Roberts‘ career — and now, he’s publicly retracting that statement.
In his new memoir, Runaway Train: Or the Story of My Life So Far, the prolific character actor apologizes to his sister for saying he made her famous. “Now one of the things I’d like to apologize for in this book is for publicly saying on more than one occasion, ‘If it wasn’t for me, there would be no Julia Roberts,'” Roberts writes. “That’s not only unfortunate, but it’s also untrue. And I hope Julie will accept this more public apology. It was an asinine thing to have said. I was proud of her, but it was pride turned on its head, to my own advantage.” (Roberts also talks in the book about family members referring to the Oscar-winning star as Julie.)
Roberts notes that Julia could have easily succeeded without his intervention. “She’s a very driven woman,” he says. “Someone would have plucked her out of the crowd in a place like New York without my help.”
Roberts goes on to explain that Julia and their other sister, Lisa, moved in with him in his Manhattan apartment. “Little did they know that I would become so difficult to be around,” he writes. “That’s why Julie and Lisa soon wanted a place of their own. I was already deep into drugs. They lived with me for the better part of a year, and then I got them their own place.”
Roberts says that he paid for his sisters’ apartment for a year. “I needed my privacy because I was such a f—ed-up guy who wanted to do f—ed-up things, but I had enough sense to take care of them, to get them out of my apartment and out of harm’s way.”
Roberts once publicized his claim to his sister’s fame in a 2018 Vanity Fair interview, where he discussed both the Pretty Woman actress and his daughter, American Horror Story star Emma Roberts. “If it wasn’t for me, there would be no Julia Roberts and no Emma Roberts as celebrities, as actresses, and I’m very proud of that. When Julia first came to New York, I went into William Morris and I said, ‘Which one of you is going to sign my sister Julia?’” Eric Roberts said in the interview. “And I am so proud that everybody knows I was first, because I was first by a long shot. I was first to get Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations, so I’m proud of that.”
In an interview with Still Here Hollywood earlier this year, Roberts dodged a question about his sister and daughter. “I love my sister, but I can’t talk about her. She doesn’t wanna talk about it,” he said. “My daughter told me also not not to talk about her, but I stumble and do.” He later said, “I’m not supposed to talk about either of them. But I do.”
Eric Roberts’ memoir Runaway Train: Or the Story of My Life So Far is available now.
