Richard Dreyfuss’ Son Ben Says He and Siblings Are Estranged from Oscar-Winning Dad, Claims ‘We Have No Money’ from Him

Ben Dreyfuss, son of actor Richard Dreyfuss, is alleging that he and his two siblings have been estranged from their father for years and have not benefited financially from his long career in Hollywood.

On Thursday, Nov. 13, Ben — a 39-year-old journalist who previously worked at Mother Jones — shared a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), which he later deleted. In them, he claimed that he and his siblings, Emily and Harry, “have no money” saved from their father’s successful acting work.

“My dad has no money,” Ben wrote in one of the posts, according to USA Today. “If he did, we wouldn’t get it since we’ve been estranged ever since some complicated family drama to do with MeToo.”

Ben went on to say that his relationship with his father, Richard — the 78-year-old Oscar-winning star of Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind — began to deteriorate years ago after a particular incident. Around the time the #MeToo movement surged in 2017, Ben says he was managing his father’s Twitter account and posted a message supporting his younger brother Harry, who had accused Kevin Spacey of groping him when he was 18. At the time, a lawyer for Spacey denied the allegation.

According to Ben, that tweet “prompted someone to MeToo my dad,” and he alleges that his father has since blamed his children for what followed. “This led to years of acrimony,” Ben wrote, as reported by USA Today.

On Monday, Nov. 17, Ben expanded on his claims about the estrangement by publishing what he described as his most recent email exchange with Richard on his Substack newsletter, Calm Down. “I’ve sent plenty since, but he hasn’t replied,” he wrote in the post, sharing what he said was a January 2024 email thread between them. “It’s long and pathetic, and he comes off worse than I do, but I’m not exactly covered in glory either,” Ben added.

In the emails, Ben appeared to revisit a tense 2022 family dinner in San Francisco, where he said he struggled to articulate his complicated feelings about public accusations of nepotism directed at 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, before admitting that during that argument he called Richard a homophobic slur. He added that he had “been trying to make amends” for more than a year.

Richard, in his alleged reply, wrote a largely all-caps message in which he said he believed Ben thought “I have money I’m keeping from you,” and accused Ben and Emily of causing a scene during the 2022 dinner. “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,” he wrote.

“AS I TOLD YOU, TO START WRITING ME WITHOUT ANY ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN ALL THE THINGS THAT YOU SAID ON THE LAST NIGHT AT THE RESTAURANT. UNTIL YOU ALL WROTE SOMETHING ADDRESSING THE LIES, DISTORTIONS, THAT KEPT A SET OF DIFFERENT FEELINGS, VALUES, KEPT THEM HIDDEN FROM ME, YOU WOULD NOT BE HEARING FROM ME,” Richard added, in what Ben says is the last message he has received from his father.

Ben later wrote on Substack and in a Nov. 16 X thread that he regrets deleting his original Nov. 13 posts about the estrangement. “I love my father. I have always loved him. I think he’s better than this email,” he wrote. “But it’s been two years, and this appears to be the last email I’m ever going to get from him, so f— it.”

Richard shares sons Ben and Harry and daughter Emily with his ex-wife Jeramie Rain, a former actress and producer. The pair divorced in 1995, and he has been married to Svetlana Erokhin since 2006. Emily is also a journalist and currently works as an editor at The San Francisco Standard.

“Ben and I have different experiences of this sadness, but I’m relieved it’s finally out in the open now,” Emily wrote in a Tuesday, Nov. 18 X post responding to Ben’s Substack essay.