Highlights
- Elle King opened up about her famous father,
SNL’s
Rob Schneider, calling him “very toxic” and not helpful in her career. - Elle described tense dynamics with her father, recalling unpleasant experiences on movie sets during summers spent with him.
- She disagreed with her father’s controversial views, and expressed a desire not to be associated with him publicly.
Country star Elle King recently opened up about her famous father – Rob Schneider, best known for Saturday Night Live – and she didn’t pull punches.
Rob Schneider was fortunate to be on SNL in the talent-heavy glory days of the early 1990s, when Hollywood could and did greenlight almost everything Saturday Night Live pitched into a feature film.
He rode that wave until the mid 2000s with a slate of largely forgettable films before fading into obscurity — unlike, say, Adam Sandler.
Now 35, Elle is Rob Schneider’s daughter by model London King, and her parents split up when she was a baby.
At one point, Elle appeared in her father’s movie Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, but her childhood memories don’t seem to reflect a fantastic father-daughter relationship.
Elle recently appeared on Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast; Bunnie XO is married to fellow country star Jelly Roll.
During the episode, Elle spoke to Bunnie about her dad, and King had a lot to say.
Related
Does Elle King’s Impressive Net Worth Have Anything To Do With Her Famous Father?
Elle King may have a famous father but does his influence have anything to do with the success the country star has had as of late?
Elle King Says Rob Schneider Is ‘Very Toxic, Very Silly’
On August 12, Bunnie XO dropped a Dumb Blonde teaser clip on TikTok and Instagram.
In the Instagram caption box, Bunnie thanked Elle for her candor, alongside a Reel preview of her comments about her famous father:
“I just adore this woman @elleking thanks for coming by being so vulnerable & open & sharing your truth. 🤍💫”
The clip Bunnie shared was not contiguous, excerpting a range of things Elle said about Schneider in the course of a much broader conversation.
Be aware that in the teaser below, some profanity is used, and a musical introduction is so much louder than the conversation that follows that it could accurately be classed as a “jump scare”:
At the beginning of the Reel, Bunnie admits to Elle that her father Rob was “one of [Bunnie’s] childhood crushes,” drawing an “Oh, my gosh!” from King.
Immediately after the video cuts to their conversation, Elle establishes the tense dynamic she has with her father, describing the rarity with which they connect and the way he speaks to her when they do:
“I go for like four or five years without talking to my dad [cut] … and people finally started asking about my dad.
“And my dad called me and was like, ‘don’t f***** talk about me in the press,’ … like, get f*****.”
That was merely Elle’s first statement in Bunnie’s Reel, and comparatively mild in contrast with what else she said.
Bunnie’s teaser jumped around, and she asked about Elle’s experiences with Rob as a child.
Elle responded, recalling that spending summers with her father was neither common nor pleasant for her:
“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, like, I would get in f****** trouble.”
Before Elle described her father’s behavior as “very toxic … very silly,” she described herself as “very heavy as a child,” adding that Schneider sent her to “fat camp,” and stating she got in trouble one summer because an injury briefly prevented her from losing weight.
By far, the most impactful portion of the interview was teased next in the clip, and Elle starts by saying she does not agree with her father’s positions on a number of social issues.
NBC recapped some of Rob Schneider’s most recent public comments about the LGBTQ community, the subject on which Elle seemed to disagree with her father most of all:
“In late July, Schneider took to X (formerly Twitter) to express his outrage towards the Olympics opening ceremony, which featured a tableau he interpreted as a recreation of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’ …
“‘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.’
“Schneider added in a follow-up post: ‘Guys with their genitalia hanging out in front of children?! Drag Queens?! I wasn’t sure if I was watching the Olympics or if I was watching a school board meeting.'”
Of her father’s views about the LGBTQ community, Elle said:
“I disagree with a lot of the things that he says. You’re talking out of your a** and you’re talking s*** about drag, and, you know, [you are] anti-gay rights. And it’s like, ‘get f*****.'”
At the end of the teaser, Elle says she doesn’t want to be “associated” with Schneider, and that he never helped her with her career, explaining:
“He also didn’t have a very good reputation … I don’t wanna be associated with him, [he’s] just not nice.”
Several outlets contacted Rob Schneider’s reps for comment, and he declined.
Bunnie’s podcast with Elle King dropped on August 12, and it is available on Apple Podcasts and “all streaming platforms.”