Mark Wahlberg is a dad to three, but right now his mind is focused on his eldest, 13-year-old daughter Ella. While on The Graham Norton Show, the actor explained why he has had to keep a close eye on Ella and who she hangs out with, and the answer isn't too surprising: she's starting to date and he is nervous. Or rather, he is ready to start laying down the law about the boys that Ella will chose to get close to.
Wahlberg explained that his daughter briefly dated a boy who wasn't really a good kid, so now his radars are on full alert. When Ella mentioned she had a new boy in her life, her dad had one major stipulation for the two to be together: "You can hang out with him in a safe environment." That is dad talk for: " You can hang out with him if I am there to chaperone." But much to his surprise, the young boy totally saw right through Wahlberg and completely one-upped him.
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"He comes over and he one-ups me — he brings his mum!" Wahlberg said. "The genius thing is he was so sweet and [my daughter] is like steamrolling me all the time and he's seeing it, like she's being rude to me and she's being mean to me and [he's] like, 'If you're not nice to [your dad], he may not want to be around you."
Based on this interaction, Wahlberg has since deemed the teen "a keeper" and now questions whether his daughter will be able to hold him down. During the same show, Wahlberg also gave out some industry advice in addition to his fatherly anecdotes. To fellow guest Tom Holland, star of Spider-Man: Homecoming, he said to not pay attention to Wahlberg's own missteps as a young celebrity because he made a lot of mistakes. "I went to jail before I had a career so now you're going to go to jail at some point during your career," he joked. "Don't take any advice from me. The first check I bought I ran to the Mercedes dealer and I bought a car."
This is the epitome of the classic parenting phrase: "Do as I say, not as I do."
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