Elle King: Rob Schneider Sent Me to ‘Fat Camp’ in Childhood

Elle King recently opened up about her complex relationship with her father, comedian Rob Schneider. In a candid TikTok snippet previewing her appearance on Bunnie Xo’s Dumb Blonde podcast, the Ex’s & Oh’s singer shared details about her childhood, including being sent to a “fat camp.”

“I was, like, a really, really heavy child,” King admitted. “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. Very toxic and very silly.”

Throughout the teaser clip, the 35-year-old singer revealed that she often goes “four or five years without talking” to Schneider. A significant part of this distance stems from his right-wing political views, which she openly disagrees with.

“I disagree with a lot of the things that he says,” King stated emphatically. “You’re talking out of your a** and you’re talking s*** about drag and anti-gay rights. It’s like, get f******… 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.”

Reflecting on her difficult childhood, King remembered times spent on her father’s movie sets as less than ideal. “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,” she recalled. “If I ever messed up a shot, if I ever was talking, I would get in f****** trouble.”

She also recalled the emotional pain of feeling forgotten. “… My dad forgot about every single birthday,” King shared. “I spent my 18th birthday in a summer school and they brought me cupcakes. I came home and my dad forgot my birthday.”

Raised primarily by her mother, model London King, and her stepfather, Justin Tesa, in Ohio, Elle has still made efforts to reconnect with Schneider as an adult. However, these attempts have been fraught with difficulty.

“I would try every different angle” to fix their relationship, she noted. “I would try letters, I would try soft, I would try yelling. And he’s just like, ‘Well, see look, you’re yelling.’”

“You can want someone to change so much,” she reflected. “You can’t control anyone else’s actions, you can’t control people’s feelings. All you can control is how you react and what you do with your feelings. And sometimes I f****** boil up and I boil over and I f****** bust my lid.”