Kelsey Grammer’s Daughter Greer Reveals the ‘Meanest Thing’ He Said After Their 12-Year Estrangement: ‘I Just Started Sobbing’

Greer Grammer is opening up about her relationship with her father, Kelsey Grammer — including a remark she once considered the harshest thing he ever said to her.

During a recent appearance on the Pretty Basic Podcast, the Awkward alum, 33, reflected on reconnecting with the Frasier star, 70, after years apart. Kelsey and Greer’s mother, stylist Barrie Buckner, split when Greer was 4, and Greer said she later reconnected with her dad when she was 16.

One moment, in particular, stayed with her. Greer recalled that her last name had always been Grammer — but that her father later told her he’d once suggested to her mother that she might be better off not carrying it.

“[Grammer] was always my last name. I guess my dad did ask my mom — he told me this later — but he was like, ‘I told your mom… I said it might be better for you to not have my last name. It would be easier for you growing up,’” Greer said.

She explained that she was around 19 when she heard that for the first time — and it hit hard.

“I think I was like 19 when he told me that and I started sobbing, because to me that was like the meanest thing you could ever say to somebody,” she said, adding that it felt like he was admitting, “‘I knew I wasn’t gonna be in your life, so I told my mom it would probably be easier for you to not have my last name.’”

Even so, Greer acknowledged that she could understand where he was coming from, calling the suggestion “fair” and saying her dad was “not wrong.”

Elsewhere in the conversation, Greer addressed what she called a common misconception — that she didn’t know her dad at all until she was 16. While she said she has some “very specific” memories of time spent with him before he “left,” she described their reconnection as happening when she was a teen.

At the time, she was doing community service as Miss Teen Malibu at a Christmas tree lot when she said he approached her.

“He came up to me and said, ‘Are you Greer?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I am,’” she recalled. “Then he went, ‘I’m —.’ And I was like, ‘I know who you are. Duh.’”

Greer said Kelsey was living in Malibu then with his wife at the time, Camille Grammer, and their two children: Mason, 24, and Jude, 21. He also shares children Faith, 12, Gabriel, 10, James, 8, and newborn Christopher with his wife Kayte Walsh, along with daughter Spencer, 42, with ex-wife Doreen Alderman.

Meeting for lunch about a week later helped set the foundation for their relationship, Greer said — though she didn’t call him right away.

“It took a couple of days to call him, because my mom was like, ‘Give them some time.’ I was ready to call him that day, like, ‘Let’s do this thing. I got a dad now, woohoo!’” she said. “She was kind of like, ‘Take some time to think about it over the weekend. Let them process it as a family and then call.’”

Today, Greer said she and her father are in a good place. She noted that he paid for her college, but she joked that she doesn’t have a trust fund: “I wish.”

Kelsey has also spoken publicly about trying to strengthen relationships with his older children, saying in May that he’s been “playing catch up with some of the older” kids.

“I have neglected a couple of the kids in my life, especially the first two,” he said at the time. “I’m trying to make up for a little of it now. I’m still their dad, so you can always have [a] chance to show up.”

The actor announced in October that he and Walsh welcomed their eighth child, a baby named Christopher. Speaking with TMZ this month, Kelsey said it had been “absolutely wonderful” having a little one at home again.

“You forget what a blessing it is to have a small child in life,” he said. “As I left tonight, I turned and looked at my four kids and my beautiful wife. It does not get better.”