Henry Winkler has revealed why he stopped his child from appearing on reality television.
The actor, 79, who has starred in much loved series including Arrested Development and Happy Days admitted he did not want his daughter in the entertainment industry.
Zoe, 44, went on to find her passion after turning down an opportunity to star in a series alongside the now–reality star mogul Kim Kardashian.
Speaking on her podcast What in the Winkler?! Zoe asked her father: “Do you remember when I was in the running to be The Bachelorette?”
The Bachelorette is an ABC dating show that launched in 2003 where a single woman meets and gets to know a group of eligible men.
In reaction to his daughter almost starring in the show, Winkler said: “Oh, my goodness, and we put a stop to that. But only your protection.”
Zoe had a second big opportunity in reality television when she and her two friends Poosh COO Sarah Howard and Kim Kardashian were asked to go on a programme called Quarter-Life Crisis.
An executive from the media company VH1 flew to Los Angeles to film a reel of what Quarter-Life Crisis might be like and during the visit met Zoe’s father as she was living at home at the time.
Winkler recalled: “I said, ‘It is so lovely that you’re here. I can suggest some really good restaurants. My daughter is not doing your show.’”
Zoe said that reality television “worked out for Kim, because she went on to become the most famous person in the world.”
Meanwhile, her father’s protectiveness redirected her onto another career path: “I became a teacher, which was the best job and what I always truly wanted to do,” she said.
Winkler said his daughter was “born” to be a teacher and said reality television was “so not the right thing for you to do in your life. It would have just perverted your trajectory. I really believe that.”
In a full circle moment, the producer for Quarter-Life Crisis later walked into her classroom because she was teaching his child.
It comes shortly after Winkler spoke out about how his dyslexia left him feeling “humiliated” during table reads for Happy Days.
“Even in the midst of Happy Days, at the height of my fame and success, I felt embarrassed, inadequate,” he wrote in his memoir Being Henry: The Fonz… and Beyond.
“Every Monday at 10 o’clock, we would have a table reading of that week’s script, and at every reading I would lose my place or stumble. I would leave a word out, a line out. I was constantly failing to give the right cue line, which would then screw up the joke for the person doing the scene with me.
“Everybody in the cast was warm and supportive, but I constantly felt I was letting them down.”
