Eric Roberts’ Health: Should ‘DWTS’ Fans Be Concerned?
Concerns about Eric Roberts’ health are circulating on social media following the actor’s debut on Dancing With the Stars Tuesday night.
Eric has been in the spotlight for over 40 years, but until recently, he had remained quiet about the details of his personal life.
But in his new memoir, Runaway Train, Eric opens up like never before about his personal demons and his long road to recovery.
Eric Roberts’ Painful Past
In the book, Eric goes into detail about his difficult childhood and his complex relationship with sister Julia Roberts.
It couldn’t have been easy to share so much about the darkest times in his life, and Eric is being widely praised for his candor.
According to excerpts published by People, Eric describes his father as an abusive alcoholic who “was a very screwed-up individual and not safe for me, or anyone, to have as a father.”
At 17, Eric moved to New York to pursue acting.
He found success almost immediately with roles in King of the Gypsies, Star 80, and Pope of Greenwich Village, in which he costarred with Mickey Rourke.
In 1985, Roberts received an Oscar nomination for his role as an escaped convict in a film titled Runaway Train.
Eric would go on to rack up an astonishing 700 film and television credits. In 2017 alone, he worked on 74 different movies.
But he experienced many ups and downs during the height of his fame.
Eric Roberts’ Health Struggles Come to Light
A 2018 Vanity Fair profile revealed that Eric suffered a near-fatal motorcycle accident while high on cocaine in 1981.
The crash left him with a traumatic brain injury that completely upended his life.
“I was in a coma. My speech was very retarded. I had to learn how to walk again and talk again. It was really hard,” Eric told the outlet.
Eric eventually regained his speech and mobility, but his struggles with substance abuse continued.
Eric’s Battle With Addiction
According to his wife, Eliza Roberts, Eric has been sober since 1995.
but he says he still feels the consequences of his decades-long addictions to cocaine and alcohol.
In 1992, Eric lost custody of daughter Emma Roberts due to his substance abuse.
“Of course, the biggest consequence of my drug use was losing Emma,” he writes in the book.
Eric says he also regrets comments that he made while under the influence, such as the multiple times he remarked, “If it wasn’t for me, there would be no Julia Roberts.”
“I hope Julia will accept this public apology. It was an asinine thing to have said,” he writes in his book.
We hope, for the sake of all involved, that Eric will be able to find the peace and redemption he seeks.
Eric Roberts’ Health Concerns: Is He In Any Condition to Compete on … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.