Elle King doesn’t appear to be walking back any of the unflattering claims she’d made about her father Rob Schneider last month, though she did come forward this week to say she had no malicious intent.
“I never in a million years thought that that was going to go viral,” the singer told People magazine on Thursday. “I was just speaking about my childhood and about my truth,” she added. “I was not trying to hurt him.”
The comments come weeks after King went on Bunnie XO’s Dumbe Blonde podcast, saying that it had been “four or five years” since she last talked with Schneider, pointing out his anti-LGBTQ stance.
“I disagree with a lot of the things that he says,” King said at the time. “You’re talking out of your ass and you’re talking shit about drag and, you know, anti-gay rights. And it’s like, get fucked.”
She talked about childhood trauma she faced from Schneider, claiming that she was sent to “fat camp” when she was a kid. “And then I got in trouble one year because I sprained my ankle, and I didn’t lose any weight,” she said. “Very toxic and very silly.”
Schneider went on Tucker Carlson’s podcast the next day, asking his daughter for forgiveness. “I wish I was the father in my 20s that you needed. And clearly, I wasn’t,” he said. “I hope you can forgive me for my shortcomings. I love you completely, and I love you entirely.”
King appeared to be unmoved, telling People that “ultimately, I think an apology on Tucker Carlson is like a double negative, right? Means nothing.”
“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 said. “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.”