Richard Dreyfuss got at least one #MeToo accusation in November 2017, and since then, his career has been in shambles. To be fair, Dreyfuss always had the reputation of being a very “difficult” actor, a hellish costar and a pretty terrible person in general. People put up with him for years because he was such a talented actor. But it got easier and easier to write him off as the years ticked by, especially when he repeatedly said wildly offensive things in public. Well, did you know that Richard Dreyfuss is also estranged from his adult children? His son Ben Dreyfuss wrote about what’s been happening behind the scenes:
Richard Dreyfuss’ son Ben Dreyfuss is alleging he and his two siblings have been estranged from their actor father for years. On Thursday, Nov. 13, Ben — a 39-year-old journalist who previously worked at Mother Jones — shared a number of since-deleted posts on X in which he wrote that he and his two siblings Emily and Harry “have no money” saved from their father’s successful acting career.
“My dad has no money,” Ben wrote in a since-deleted post, as recorded by USA Today on Nov. 13. “If he did, we wouldn’t get it since we’ve been estranged ever since some complicated family drama to do with MeToo.”
In those X posts, Ben said that his relationship with his father, Richard — the 78-year-old Oscar-winning actor known for his roles in Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind — began to break down years ago due to a specific incident. Around the time the #MeToo movement went viral in 2017, Ben was allegedly managing Richard’s Twitter account and wrote a post supporting his younger brother, Harry, who accused Kevin Spacey of groping him when he was 18 years old. At the time, a lawyer representing Spacey denied the allegations.
According to Ben’s since-deleted X posts, the tweet “prompted someone to MeToo my dad,” and he has since blamed his children for the incident. “This led to years of acrimony,” Ben wrote, per USA Today.
On Monday, Nov. 17, Ben furthered his claims regarding his estrangement from Richard by publishing what he described as the most recent email exchange between himself and Richard on his Substack blog Calm Down. “I’ve sent plenty since, but he hasn’t replied,” Ben wrote in the blog post. In it, he shared an alleged January 2024 email exchange between him and his father. “It’s long and pathetic, and he comes off worse than I do, but I’m not exactly covered in glory either,” Ben wrote of the exchange.
In that email exchange, Ben appeared to explain his actions at a 2022 family dinner in San Francisco, where he said he poorly explained his complicated feelings about public accusations of nepotism against him.
“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,” Ben wrote in the email, before acknowledging he called Richard a homophobic slur during the ensuing argument. In the email, Ben wrote he had “been trying to make amends” for the incident for more than a year.
In response, Richard allegedly wrote a largely all-caps email stating he believed Ben thought “I have money I’m keeping from you,” and said Ben and Emily made a public scene during the 2022 dinner argument. “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,” Richard wrote.
It keeps going but caps-lock makes my eye twitch. I don’t really understand why Ben is spilling so much family drama in public right now? Were people asking for an update? Did someone accuse him of being a nepo-baby? While I think it’s weird for him to go public with all of this family bullsh-t, I have no issue believing that Richard Dreyfuss was and is a terrible person and a terrible father. I also believe he probably has no money, but that’s not about his kids, that’s about his own miserable professional choices.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Yeah, I thought this was weird when I read it the other day. Has anyone even been thinking about Richard Dreyfuss lately? Why this story now and why is the son dredging up emails? And what does this mean – that the children have no money “saved up” from their father’s career?
Wait. So Ben was controlling his father’s Twitter account. Wrote something in support of his younger brother / Richard’s son.
That supportive text “made someone #metoo my dad?”. So Ben completely dismisses the accusations against his dad and say they were done by someone out of spite for a supportive text?
And not that someone couldn’t stomach seeing this hypocrite – Richard- supporting his son and denouncing abusers after Richard had abused her?
This man is not intelligent
Sorry, this makes Ben look worse. Why is he putting this out there?
I don’t really have an opinion on this man’s choices. I will say that from personal experience, the time line for processing trauma and grief is not linear. I said nothing when I escaped in the middle of the night with my two children from my alcoholic abusive ex. I said nothing for four years? Then, for some reason, I wanted to tell everyone. I reeled myself back in quickly. But I still don’t understand it.
This is a very empathetic take, and very true. That Ben doesn’t come off “well” here just adds to the sense he is processing. We don’t know what else has happened/is happening in his life or his family’s .
Agreed. As someone that has received an ALL CAPS email from my father disowning me for daring to explain why I was hurt. The pain and guilt is always there unless there is accountability and that never comes. Not sure of the timing as there doesn’t seem to be a trigger, but who am I to judge until I get more information. The father wound is deep and maybe more so to a son.
I really appreciate these thoughtful comments. My knee-jerk reaction was, why would he put all this out in public? But I remember from my own painful experiences with parents that there is no linear timeline or ‘normal’ way to process this. I just hurt for him and his siblings and wish them healing and peace.
Yeah exactly. I feel like untreated trauma can resurface at strange and often unwanted times in one’s life. It can feel like something you can’t control–at least in terms of timing.
Ben seems like a bit of a mess but it was always going to be a struggle for him with a father like Richard. After the immediate catharsis he might feel from airing this out, he needs healing hopefully in the form of therapy.
The comments are healing. Thanks, Celebitches, for being awesome.
Dreyfuss is a raging racist and MAGA and this was known long before MeToo. He hadn’t worked for years at that point and was mostly making his money doing fan-con appearances in connection to Jaws. So I find it interesting none of that is what made his kids want to stop talking to him.