Kelsey Grammer's relationship with his daughter, Greer, has been fraught with awkward moments. The actress, whose mother, Barrie Buckner, split from the Frasier actor in the mid-90s when she was just four years old, recalled one particularly harsh comment her father made during a conversation about their long estrangement. "Grammer was always my last name," she said on a recent episode of the Pretty Basic podcast. "My dad actually told my mom that it might be better for me not to have his last name because it would be easier for me growing up."
Greer, who was 19 when her father made this comment, recalled being "in tears" because she felt it was "the meanest thing you could ever say to somebody. Like, 'I knew I wasn't gonna be in your life, so I told your mom it would be easier for you not to have my last name.'"
Despite this painful memory, the 33-year-old actress and Kelsey reconnected by chance when she was volunteering at a Christmas tree lot during her time as Miss Teen Malibu. "He came up to me and said, 'Are you Greer?'" she recounted. "I said, 'Yes, I am.' Then he said, 'I'm... And I was like, 'I know who you are. Duh.'"
The following week, Greer met her father for lunch and their relationship began to blossom. "That's kind of what started our relationship," she said. "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!' But 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.'"
Now, the two have a good relationship and Kelsey has even paid for Greer's college education. Despite not having a trust fund, the actress is grateful for her father's support. For his part, Kelsey is eager to make up for lost time. "I have neglected a couple of the kids in my life, especially the first two," he told People in May. "I'm trying to make up for a little of it now." He added at the time, "I'm still their dad, so you can always have [a] chance to show up."
