“I think he’s better than this email. But it’s been two years, and this appears to be the last email I’m ever going to get from him, so f– it,” the journalist wrote before sharing the exchange.
Jaws star Richard Dreyfuss’ son Ben Dreyfuss is getting extremely candid about the state of his relationship with his dad. According to the 39-year-old, he and his two siblings, Emily Dreyfuss and Harry Dreyfuss, are estranged from the actor.Â
Ben wrote a now-deleted X post from November 13th where he claimed that he and his siblings have not received any money from his father. He explained, “Everyone assumes my siblings and I are wealthy from our dad and we’re all a bit too uncomfortable to make it clear, but we have no money from my dad.”
He also gave some insight into his father’s alleged financial situation, as well as where the family drama began. “My dad has no money. If he did, we wouldn’t get it since we’ve been estranged ever since some complicated family drama to do with MeToo,” wrote Ben.
The eldest Dreyfuss son appears to be referring to his younger brother Harry accusing Kevin Spacey of groping him when he was 18-years-old. In 2017, during the #MeToo movement, the 39-year-old allegedly wrote a tweet and posted it to his father’s account, in Richard’s name, support his youngest son.Â
The post allegedly led to a woman coming forward with MeToo allegations against Richard Dreyfuss. “This led to years of acrimony,” according to Ben.Â
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Shortly after deleting the X posts, USA Today covered the story, and Ben shared more insights on the Substack blog Calm Down. In regards to the deleted words that USA Today shared, the journalist wrote, “It’s fine that they wrote about it. I just wish I’d seen it before I deleted the thread, because now I look like an idiot.”
He then said that he doesn’t feel like he deserves sympathy and felt the best way to show the nature of his and his dad’s relationship was by posting their alleged last email exchange. Ben claimed this is the last email that his father has replied to, even though he’s sent more since: “I love my father. I have always loved him. I think he’s better than this email. But it’s been two years, and this appears to be the last email I’m ever going to get from him, so f– it.”
The email exchange was in regards to a 2022 family dinner that Ben said resulted in a heated argument when the eldest Dreyfuss son brought up that someone had accused him of nepotism. He wrote to his father, “I didn’t explain any of this well, and I didn’t even finish the thought before you and Emily started to speak, and we all started to scream at each other about a completely separate tangent over who is to blame for what.”
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The argument also apparently ended in Ben calling his father a homophobic slur, which he was trying to apologize for. There had also been misconceptions regarding money involved.Â
The response Dreyfuss got from his father was an all caps email that read as, “AT LEAST KEEP THIS ONE LETTER. IT’LL BE THE LAST ONE UNLESS YOU STOP BEING A COWARD. OR START BEING BETTER THAN YOUR BROTHER OR SISTER.”
He finished with, “AS I TOLD YOU, TO START WRITING ME WITHOUT ANY ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN ALL THE THINGS THAT YOU SAID ON THE LAST NIGHT AT THE RESTAURANT. UNTIL YOU ALL WROTE SOMETHING ADDRESSING THE LIES, DISTORTIONS, THAT KEPT A SET OF DIFFERENT FEELINGS, VALUES, KEPT THEM HIDDEN FROM ME, YOU WOULD NOT BE HEARING FROM ME.”
Ben emphasized that this is the last communication that he has received from the Close Encounters of a Third Kind actor, and neither have made further comments on the situation since.
