<\/p>\n
Ben Stiller<\/strong> shared rare insight into his personal life when he admitted to making “mistakes” when raising his two adult children, Ella Stiller<\/strong> and son Quinn Stiller<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cLike any parent, I remember things that weren\u2019t happy about my childhood and go, \u2018I\u2019ll do better,\u2019” Ben, 59, said while speaking to The Sunday Times<\/a><\/em> in an interview published on Saturday, October 11, after he was asked what he learned not to do from his late parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara.<\/p>\n He continued, \u201cAnd then I realized it was impossible to avoid making the mistakes they made. I feel like I have a really great relationship with my kids, but it\u2019s complicated and has at times been strained.”<\/p>\n “When they were young, I did not get it. I thought, \u2018Oh, the kids are young, I can work away and be a good dad earning for the family,'” Ben noted. “But the bonds you form with your kids when they\u2019re young are so important.\u201d<\/p>\n The Zoolander<\/em> actor shares Ella, 23, and Quinn, 20, with his wife, Christine Taylor<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Ben went on to admit that he and his sister, Amy Stiller,<\/strong> had a complicated relationship with his late parents, noting that they were not entirely present for their childhoods due to their busy careers in as comedians.<\/p>\n \u201cIt totally affected us,\u201d Ben said of how Jerry and Anne’s careers led them to spend many late nights in New York or weeks away in Los Angeles. \u201cI just remember missing them terribly. And when they would come back, my sister and I would act out Jesus Christ Superstar <\/em>or something in the lounge.\u201d<\/p>\n After Ben opened up about some of the low points<\/a> in his childhood, he also admitted that he “probably f–ked up more with my kids than my parents did with us.\u201d<\/p>\n Ben shared an example of his parenting mistakes, explaining that he cast Ella in a role in The Secret life of Walter Mitty<\/em> \u2014 which he directed \u2014 before he ultimately cut her role out of the 2013 film.<\/p>\n \u201cMy son tells me that being a dad might not have been at the top of my list,\u201d he recalled of the decision.<\/p>\n Another way his kids had it hard was when he and Taylor, 54, separated from 2017 to 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a strain on my relationship with the kids,\u201d he explained. \u201cAnd I\u2019d think, \u2018Well, my parents never did that.\u2019 But a long relationship is hard. You lose the freshness. I feel bad about what us breaking up did to the kids, but it was possibly the best thing to happen to Christine and me.\u201d<\/p>\n Parade Daily\ud83c\udfac\u00a0<\/strong>SIGN UP for Parade\u2019s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\ud83c\udfac<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben recently opened up about his and Taylor’s separation<\/a> in the documentary Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we separated my feeling was like \u2018Oh, I\u2019m failing at this\u2019 and look at my parents they have this incredible 50 plus year marriage and I can\u2019t live up to that,\u201d he said in the doc,\u00a0per People<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n However, he and Taylor were able to work on their marriage during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of a sudden we were together in the house and during that time I started to make the movie too. So there sort of this coming together. Us talking about what we were going through, our issues, and looking at what my parents had been through too in a way I hadn\u2019t looked at it before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Oct 13, 2025, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ben Stiller shared rare insight into his personal life when he admitted to making “mistakes” when raising his two adult children, Ella Stiller and son Quinn Stiller. \u201cLike any parent, I remember things that weren\u2019t happy about my childhood and go, \u2018I\u2019ll do better,\u2019” Ben, 59, said while speaking to The Sunday Times in an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2086967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[380331,65245,348451,393102,343225,393103],"class_list":["post-2086966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-amy-stiller","tag-ben-stiller","tag-christine-taylor","tag-ella-stiller","tag-jerry-stiller","tag-quinn-stiller"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Ben-Stiller-Opens-Up-About-Parenting-\u2018Mistakes-in-Rare-Personal.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2086966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2086968,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086966\/revisions\/2086968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2086967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2086966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2086966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2086966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}