Eric Roberts has used some of his new memoir, Runaway trainto publicly apologize to his sister, Julia Roberts, for an earlier “idiotic” comment he made.

The dark knight actor, 68, who has had a troubled relationship with Julia, 56, over the years after becoming estranged from her in 2005, made headlines in 2018 when he declared Vanity Fair: “If it weren’t for me, Julia Roberts wouldn’t exist.”

He went on to boast that despite the Beautiful woman The star’s fame surpassed his own and he was the one who walked into the New York agency William Morris in 1985 and asked, “Which one of you is going to sign my sister Julia?”

“And I’m so proud that everyone knows that I was the first, because I was the first by far. I was the first to be nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award, so I’m proud of that,” he told the publication.

Six years later, Roberts reflected on his bold proclamation, writing in his memoirs: “I hope Julia will accept this public apology. It was a foolish thing to say.”

Roberts, born the eldest of four, tells how his years of drug addiction destroyed his relationship with his younger sisters Julia. Girl in Manhattan actor Lisa Roberts Gillan and half-sister Nancy Motes, who died in 2014.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they were suffering from PTSD when it was dangerous to be around me,” Roberts wrote. “Lisa and Julia needed love and protection—instead they got fear and insecurity.”

“Of course the biggest consequence of my drug use was the loss of Emma,” he added of losing custody of his daughter. American horror story star Emma Roberts, with whom he shares a relationship with his ex Kelly Cunningham.

Roberts and Cunningham separated when Emma, ​​now 33, was a baby. The custody battle led to a rift between him and Julia, who sided with Cunningham and paid her sister-in-law’s legal fees.

Roberts has previously blamed himself for the breakdown of his relationship with Julia. He told Vanity Fair in 2018: “I was exhausting to be around: complaining, blaming, unable to enjoy myself. Everyone in my world needed a break sometimes, and Julia must have been one of them.”

Eric recently claimed that Julia had ordered him to keep quiet about their private life. Speaking on the podcast Still here HollywoodEric told host Steve Kmetko, “I love my sister, but I can’t talk about her. She doesn’t want to talk about it.”

He also claimed that his daughter “told me not to talk about her,” adding: “I’m not really supposed to talk about either of them, but I do.”

Now available, Runaway train – named after the 1985 action film for which he earned his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor – chronicles the ups and downs of Roberts’ career and his complicated relationships with Julia and Emma.