BETRAYED BY HER BROTHER!
A bombshell memoir is set to reveal a different side to Hollywood’s sweetheart
Julia Roberts better hope she’s fully patched things up with her brother Eric because he’s about to drop a bombshell memoir that could rip the lid off her America’s Sweetheart image!
The 67-year-old actor – who likes to remind people he bagged an Oscar nomination before anyone knew who Julia was – recently announced the upcoming release of his candid memoir, Runaway Train: My Life So Far.
In it, he promises to spill all about his battle with addictions, the terrible family feud that ended in the deaths of their mum and sister within a year of each other, and his “complicated” relationship with his famous sister Julia.
“We don't agree on a lot of things,” Eric said in a 2022 podcast interview. “My sister and I, though, we’ve always talked, we’ve always bitched and we’ve always had fun knowing each other. Simple as that.”
The siblings famously fell out during Julia’s Pretty Woman heyday in 1990 after Eric grew impatient with red-carpet reporters persistently asking questions about his sister.
Eric recalls, “I said, ‘Hey, excuse me. Can we talk about me?’ I think I was very funny. Of course, then it’s like, ‘Oh, my God, they have a problem.’”
However, insiders insist the actor’s downplaying their big feud, with one friend claiming, “Eric had been successfully working as an actor for a decade – this was Julia’s big moment. Even though his comments did little to stop her big ‘leading lady’ launch, she was pissed and didn’t speak to him a very long time after that.”
Eric’s the first to admit his drug addiction took a toll on his family, after he ended up in a coma for three days after a near-catastrophic car accident in 1981.
“I was exhausting to be around,” he admits. “Complainy, blamey, unable to enjoy enjoyment... Everyone in my world needed a break sometimes and that must have included Julia.”
A friend adds, “Eric’s tested that family and it’s nothing short of a miracle that Julia came out of that without any issues of her own. Julia and Eric have settled most of their differences, but what’s going to cause some problems is their sister Nancy’s suicide note.”
FAMILY TRAUMA
The note – which appears to blame Julia, 56, and her family, for driving Nancy into “the deepest depression I’ve ever been in”– came out in court during a legal battle over Nancy’s estate. In the weeks after her death in 2014, Julia called her sister’s passing a “heartbreak”, adding, “We must find a way as a family.”
The friend says, “Reliving that dark family feud is going to be hell for her, no matter how much Eric insists it’s a chance for him to defend her. Julia had to cut Nancy out of her inner circle because she broke her trust by selling a story to a newspaper.
“A year later, they lost their mum Betty to cancer, so this was one of the darkest times in Julia’s life and to have been blamed for it was incredibly unfair. It also hit her a lot harder than Eric or [their sister] Lisa.”
In 2020, Nancy’s still-grieving fiancé John Dilbeck cruelly accused Julia of alienating his partner from Betty, the only family member who lived nearby, in “retaliation”
Friends say Julia’s always tried to maintain a dignified silence, even after John’s interview, but Eric’s memoir could bring up difficult issues.
“Julia’s on a different level of fame and she knows how easily a simple turn of phrase can be twisted,” adds our insider. “It’s why she’s asking to review a copy, but he’s playing ‘it’s up to the publisher’ games with her.
"She’s the first to admit she could be difficult to a lot of people in those early years, but Eric knows every dark secret
‘Eric knows every dark secret about his sister’
there is to know about her.
“He knows every A-lister she’s dated and has helped talk her out of a relationship crisis on more than one occasion – he won’t be able to resist claiming he valiantly ‘saved’ her marriage. Eric has the goods and Julia’s right to be concerned.”
If you’re struggling with your mental health, please text or call 1737 at any time to speak to a trained counsellor for free. For the Suicide Crisis Helpline, phone 0508 TAUTOKO. In an emergency, always dial 111.