In the 1980s, Eric Roberts was everywhere. With piercing eyes and raw, unpredictable energy, he became one of Hollywood’s most magnetic rising stars.
From his breakout in King of the Gypsies—which earned him a Golden Globe nomination—to his searing turn in Runaway Train, which brought an Oscar nod, Roberts seemed unstoppable. Critics praised his emotional depth, his volatility, his presence that could fill a screen without a word.
Through the years, he worked tirelessly, shifting between stage and screen, prestige and pulp.
He picked up awards for La Cucaracha, headlined thrillers like The Specialist and Final Analysis, and later found his way into blockbusters such as The Dark Knight and The Expendables.
Television became a second home: Heroes, Suits, CSI, Crash, Code Black—he took them all in stride. In his words, the secret was simple: “I just never stopped saying yes.”
Yet behind the steady work was a private storm. In rare moments of candor, Roberts has admitted to deep regret over what he calls “the hardest chapter” of his life—leaving his daughter, Emma Roberts, when she was still a baby.
“I had abandoned Kelly when Emma was just seven months old,” he once said, his voice heavy with remorse. Emma, now an acclaimed actress herself, speaks carefully about their distance. “Um… how do I say this? No, we’re not [close],” she told Tatler in 2022. Roberts doesn’t defend or excuse it; he simply calls it “a sadness we’ll probably misunderstand forever.”
Still, affection persists in small gestures. In 2023, on the eve of Emma’s birthday, he posted an old photo—him fumbling with a toy, his daughter laughing beside him. “Very happiest of birthday eves to my precious daughter,” he wrote. “I love you, Emma.” It was a quiet moment of longing, an open hand where once there had been silence.
His relationship with his sister, Julia Roberts, has followed its own uneven path—love and distance, then a slow reconciliation. Once known for his temper and substance abuse, Eric has been blunt about the years that drove them apart. “I was exhausting to be around,” he told Vanity Fair.
Sobriety, therapy, and the birth of Julia’s children helped thaw the frost. These days, their connection is gentler, less public. “I love my sister,” he said in 2024. “But I can’t talk about her. She doesn’t want me to. Still, I’m proud of her. Always.”
The one person who steadied him through the chaos was his wife, casting director Eliza Roberts. They met by chance on a flight—thanks to a cat named Tender—and have been together ever since. He credits her with saving his life. “My wife sending me to therapy saved my life,” he said on The Ed Mylett Show. “She understood me when I didn’t understand myself.”
Now, at 68, Roberts speaks of addiction not as scandal but as survival. “The only way to be a good example is to get through being a casualty,” he told Today in 2024.
“We addicts are casualties, and we have to fight it every day.” He doesn’t shy away from the wreckage—lost years, strained ties, the mistakes that cost him dearly—but neither does he wallow. “Addicts aren’t bad guys,” he’s said. “They’re just people who made a mistake and have to keep choosing to do better.”
He knows how the world sees him: Julia’s brother. Emma’s father. The talented one who stumbled. But after decades of rebuilding, Eric Roberts wears those titles with humility instead of resentment. The work still calls, the apologies still stand, and the love—complicated, imperfect, enduring—remains.
He’s not rewriting his story. He’s just telling it honestly now.
