Eric Roberts knows how to keep the spark alive.
The 68-year-old got candid on the secret to his 32-year marriage with wife Eliza Roberts.
“My wife hates this answer, but I’m going to give it,” Roberts exclusively told The Post at “Dancing With the Stars” Tuesday. “She is going to be mad at me.”
Despite Eliza’s protests, the actor shared his advice to keep the strong bond between himself and his wife, to whom he tied the knot in 1992.
“Honesty, but don’t use words that don’t mean something. Honesty is hard. And sex,” Roberts said.
The couple first met on a flight from New York City to Los Angeles and stayed friends because, at the time, Roberts was in a relationship. After that, the Oscar nominee welcomed his daughter, Emma Roberts, in 1991 with then-girlfriend Kelly Cunningham, but the two split months later.
Roberts started dating Eliza that same year.
“I was in another relationship at the time,” he told Howard Stern in 1994. “I’m reading a script, she’s reading a script, I tell her who my favorite writer is, the name’s David Rayfield … he just happens to be her father.”
And 26 years later, Roberts is still as in love as ever.
“My wife is my hero,” he gushed on his “Love, Drugs, and Hollywood” podcast in 2020. “She’s smarter than me and she’s as talented as me and then some. She’s also better looking than me … And she taught me how to be a grown-up to some degree.”
The “Wrong Cops” star added: “She rescued me from my ridiculous, silly childhood self, and this is something that I really treasure.”
In a 2022 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Roberts revealed that his wife is the one who oversees his schedule and the multiple project offers he receives daily.
“We’re always moving things around,” Eliza told the outlet. “It’s pretty wild. But considering they give you all these mind exercises as you get older to keep your mind sharp … I don’t think we need those!”
Despite having a solid marriage, when it comes to fatherhood, Roberts recently admitted he wasn’t well-equipped to parent the “American Horror Story” star, 33, after his split from Cunningham.
“I had abandoned Kelly when Emma was just seven months old,” Roberts wrote of his ex-partner and daughter in his new memoir “Runaway Train: Or, the Story of My Life So Far,” per Entertainment Weekly. “We went through a lot, and [Kelly] saw me at my absolute worst — yet she stayed, for a time, though I’m sure she questioned whether or not she should. We both wanted a child — maybe I did more than she — but we both wanted to become parents.”
The “Star 80” alum also recalled the excitement of being a young dad, regardless of his flaws. “I loved my little daughter with the strength of Hercules, despite my own weaknesses,” penned Roberts. “However, I couldn’t handle the realities of an infant coming into my life, and I couldn’t handle being a parent! I’m still not a father figure. Emma, on the other hand, certainly knows what that role is — now grown up and a mom herself. She’s that person to her first child, Rhodes.”
At one point, rumors swirled that his sister, Julia Roberts, became involved in his separation from Cunningham due to the custody battle over Emma, which caused tension between the two.
But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“The question has been begged, forever it seems, whether Julia and I had a giant falling out over custody of Emma. I’d like to clear the air about that, once and for all,” Roberts shared. “I never saw myself as someone who deserved to have physical custody of Emma, not in a million years. We both knew better than that. Kelly never claimed I was trying to get physical custody of Emma, so therefore, Julia never sided with Kelly in a custody fight. There really was no custody fight. I’m very happy to be straightening this out right now.”
Roberts credited his sister with helping the exes financially as they established their separation.
“When Kelly and I separated, we needed to arrange for child support and visitation,” the star explained. “The legal fees were incredibly high, and I paid for Kelly’s lawyer and my own as much as I possibly could. Thankfully, Julia helped, for Emma’s sake and because she could afford to. I deeply appreciated it.”
