Understanding Julia Roberts’ Net Worth, Career Earnings and Family Life
As a matter of fact, her parents-Walter Grady Roberts and Betty Lou Bredemus – were actors who met on a theatre production set and got married in 1955. They owned a children’s acting school in Decatur, Georgia where the children of Martin Luther King, Jr. attended. Their union produced three children including Julia Roberts, her older brother, Eric, who is 10-years older than her, and her sister Lisa.
However, the marriage crashed fifteen years later as Julia’s mother filed for divorce in 1971. Consequently, the duo went their separate ways in 1972 and in the same year, Julia Roberts mother remarried. Her second marriage to Michael Motes also hit the rocks eleven years later following allegations of abuse. The union produced Julia’s step-sister, Nancy Motes, who died of drug overdose on February 9, 2014, aged 37.
Towing the path of their parents, Julia and all her siblings ventured into the acting industry and have each recorded success at different levels.
Her brother Eric Anthony Roberts kicked off his acting career in 1978 with the performance of King of the Gypsies and the role of Paul Snider in the 1983 movie, Star 80, which earned him his very first and second Golden Globe Award nomination respectively. He also played a supporting role in the American movie Runaway Train (1985) among many other roles in both films and television drama.
Their age difference notwithstanding, Julia and Eric were once very close but things fell apart between them after Eric started having issues with drug and alcohol abuse.
At the onset of the siblings’ rift, Julia moved out of her parents’ house to live with her brother who at the time, was in a relationship with Kelly Cunningham, his longtime girlfriend. Their relationship (Eric and Kelly) went sour following Eric’s abuse of drugs and alcohol. Julia took sides with Kelly against her brother and even went as far as assisting her financially to pay her legal defense in order to gain custody of their daughter. This strained the brother-sister relationship between the actors and they remained estranged until 2004.
Lisa Roberts Gillan, on the other hand, is also not only an actor but a producer too. Although she has been successful in the industry, Lisa has always been overshadowed by Julia’s fame and is best known not for her own achievements but just as Julia Roberts sister.
