Elle King shreds dad Rob Schneider’s apology on Tucker Carlson: ‘Means nothing’

'I was just speaking about my childhood and about my truth ... I was not trying to hurt him'

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Published Sep 20, 2024  •  3 minute read

Elle King and her dad Rob Schneider during happier times. Photo by Instagram

Elle King insists she “was not trying to hurt” her father Rob Schneider by exposing him as a bad parent, but says his apology “means nothing.”

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Last month, during an interview with Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast, the Ex’s & Oh’s singer lashed out at the Saturday Night Live alum after he criticized members of the drag and LGBTQ community.

“I go for like four or five years without talking to my dad,” King, 35, said of Schneider. “I disagree with a lot of the things that he says. You’re talking out of your ass and you’re talking s*** about drag and, you know, anti-gay rights. And it’s like, get f***ed.”

Earlier this summer, the 60-year-old Saturday Night Live alum was given the hook in Saskatchewan following a comedy set that included jokes aimed at Justin Trudeau and material that was deemed “transphobic, misogynistic and anti-vax.”

But King said she doesn’t agree with her dad’s opinions. “He’s just talking out of his a** and I want to use this opportunity to say that I disagree. I do not agree with what he says,” she said.

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Elsewhere in the clip posted to TikTok, King accused her father of forgetting special occasions. 

On her 18th birthday, she said that her classmates brought her cupcakes “and I came home and my dad forgot my birthday.”

King was raised by her mother and stepdad in Ohio and didn’t reconnect with Schneider until she was much older. But she said that they had a strained relationship when she was younger.

“If I would ever spend a summer with my dad it would be on a movie set. I would just get lost in the shuffle. If I ever messed up a shot, if I ever was talking, I would get in f***ing trouble,” the four-time Grammy nominee recalled.

“He also didn’t have a very good reputation. I don’t want to be associated with him. He’s just not nice,” she added.

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King also said that the two frequently fought over her weight and her penchant for tattoos.

“I was like a really, really heavy child. My dad sent me to fat camp … and then I got in trouble one year because I sprained my ankle and didn’t lose any weight,” King recounted. “I had already started getting tattooed and it was like 108 degrees. So I had to wear sweaters because my dad was very anti-tattoos or any form of self-expression … Very toxic and very silly.”

In a new interview with PEOPLE, King says that she “never in a million years thought that (her comments were) going to go viral.”

“I was just speaking about my childhood and about my truth,” King told the outlet. “I was not trying to hurt him.”

Just days after her original interview with Bunnie XO, Schneider asked for King’s forgiveness in his own chat with Tucker Carlson.

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“I just want to tell my daughter: Elle, I love you, and I wish I was the father in my 20s that you needed, and clearly I wasn’t. I hope you can forgive me for my shortcomings,” Schneider says straight to the camera in a clip shared to X. “I love you completely. I love you entirely, and I just want you to be well and happy with you and your beautiful baby, Lucky. I wish you the best. I feel terrible, and I just want you to know that I don’t take anything you say personally.”

But King was unmoved, telling PEOPLE this week she doesn’t regret speaking her mind.

“A lot of people said, ‘How could she say that about her family?’ and ‘Everything needs to be behind closed doors.’ No it doesn’t,” she told PEOPLE, addressing the reaction to her comments. “Sometimes you have to just say things and get them off your chest so that you don’t have to carry it for the rest of your life.”

And the musical artist is happy that her remarks showed the she’s an ally to the LGBTQ+ community.

“If that’s the biggest thing to come out of that platform, then I would’ve done it 10 more f***ing times because I am an ally, they have one in me, and I’m grateful,” she said.

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