Dale Earnhardt Jr admitted he was a 'jerk' in fight with estranged stepmom
Dale Earnhardt Jr admitted he was a 'jerk' in fight with estranged stepmom
Tom MalleySat, September 5, 2026 at 11:00 AM UTC
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Dale Earnhardt Jr. alongside his stepmother, Teresa (Image: Getty)
NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. has opened up on some of his previous battles with stepmom, Teresa, and how one of them involving a chicken pot pie has left him feeling like "a jerk".
Teresa, 67, the third and final wife of Earnhardt's father, Dale Sr., needs no intorduction to NASCAR fans, having established herself as a well-known and often controversial figure in the sport through her management of Dale Earnhardt Inc. (DEI) and, of course, her high-profile trademark disputes with her stepchildren.
Earnhardt Jr. notably left his father's company following his death in 2001 as a result of his fractured relationship with Teresa, though as he's got older and had kids of his own, he's somewhat realised that perhaps his stepmother wasn't always as bad as he made her out to be.
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Speaking on a recent episode of his new podcast "Bless Your Hardt", which he co-hosts alongside his wife, Amy, as part of his Dirty Mo Media empire, Earnhardt recalled the endless battles he had with Teresa as a kid over being made to eat chicken pot pie.
The NASCAR star admitted to blaming many of the "bad" things in his life on his stepmom, and the war of chicken pot pie was just a symptom over much deeper feelings, though he now appears to have had a change of heart, having now expereinced some of these things with his two young girls himself.
"I feel so bad about this, I do," Earnhardt began. "So Teresa and I had a dynamic relationship. And when I think back, there was a long period of my adult life where I put it all on Teresa. It was bad because it was her fault.
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"And as I've gotten older, and especially now that I've had kids, trying to get our kids to eat stuff sometimes, it's impossible. So I think back and I'm like, that's me, I did that.
"Teresa would sit me down in front of a chicken pot pie. I hated them. I look at it now, and I go, 'Why did I not want to eat that?' The crust? The chicken? The pot? It's fine. But she put it in front of me, and I would refuse to eat it.
"And I hated her for it. In my mind, she's making me eat something she knows I don't like and she's making me do it because she knows I didn't like it.
A young Dale Jr. (L) stands next to Teresa as his dad, Dale Sr., is presented with a trophy (Image: Getty)
"She's just trying to put food in front of me, it's perfectly fine food. Now that I've gotten on this side of it, I'm like, you know, she's just trying to get me something in my belly. I was such a jerk."
Earnhardt went onto recall one time where he faked throwing all the chicken pot pie up just so Teresa would think it made him sick, saying that it was "stupid" and no wonder that he got sent to military school:
"In my mind, I thought she would come in there and realize that she had made me eat the chicken pot pie and I vomited it up, and I was like, 'See, I have thrown it up. See, I told you.'
"Isn't that so stupid? I was the problem. That's why I got sent to military school. Stuff like that. I was dumb."
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
