Ben Stiller says daughter blasted him for ‘not being there’ during childhood

Reality still bites for Ben Stiller.

The actor was called out by his daughter Ella, who felt that her famous pops wasn’t around during her childhood.

The “Zoolander” star got candid with Esquire about bringing up the now-19 year old while building his career.

Stiller admitted that she called him out for not being as present as he should have been as a dad during her younger years.

“She’s pretty articulate about it, and sometimes it’s stuff that I don’t want to hear. It’s hard to hear,” the “Severance” director said. “Because it’s me not being there in the ways that I saw my parents not being there. And I had always thought, Well I won’t do that.”

The Emmy Award-winning actor, 56, is the son of famed comedic duo Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller. The “King of Queens” actor died in May 2020 at the age of 92. Meara passed away in 2015 at 85.

The “Meet the Parents” leading man continued, “But then it’s that thing that, like, I was trying to navigate my own desire to fulfill the hopes and dreams I had, too. And that doesn’t feel great, but it’s important to acknowledge.”

Stiller shares Ella, as well as son Quinlin, 16, with his wife, actress Christine Taylor.

“What I’ve learned is that your kids are not keeping score on your career,” he told the publication about his children. “It would be solipsistic to think that my kids actually care about that. They just want a parent who’s emotionally present and supportive of them. That’s probably what they want more than for me to be going off and pushing the bounds of my creativity.”

Taylor, 50, and Stiller got back together this month following their 2017 split. Stiller revealed the happy news elsewhere in the interview. “We were separated and got back together and we’re happy about that,” he said.

He and the “Brady Bunch Movie” star reconciled after he moved back in with her and their kids during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Then, over the course of time, it evolved,” the Frat Pack member said of his relationship with Taylor.

Stiller and “Severance” star Adam Scott recently spoke to The Post about their Apple TV+ series and why the story was “a really amazing concept” from the start.

“Being able to go to work and forget everything about your life. Do your work, come out, and then forget everything that happened in work. The questions that brings up of why we’re doing the work we do – why we spend our time in life busying ourselves and what the meaning of it all is – those greater questions are addressed in the metaphor of the show,” Stiller said about the show’s premise.

The thriller is set at the mysterious company Lumen Industries, where workers on a specific floor can decide to undergo a “severance” procedure that turns the “work/life balance” into a reality and severs the two categories.

“[The show] was something that I would want to watch as an audience member,” Scott, 48, told The Post. “It’s this mix of dark humor and satire and thriller and suspense, all with this sinister undercurrent that’s really fun.”