Emma Roberts was born on February 10, 1991 to actor Eric Roberts and his then girlfriend Kelly Cunningham. However, her parents broke up soon after her birth and faced each other in court over accusations of domestic violence. After Eric Roberts evicted both Cunningham and his daughter (then just seven month old) from his house in 1991, his sister, actress Julia Roberts, bought them a house. She also sided with Cunningham in the custody battle over Emma, resulting in a rift between her and her brother for the years to come.
While Eric Roberts lost the custody battle and hardly saw his daughter while she was growing up, Julia Roberts became friends with Cunningham and would often spend time with her niece. In early 2001, Emma Roberts' half-sister, Grace Nickels, the daughter of her mother and former L.A. Guns bassist Kelly Nickels, was born.
Following her father and her aunt into the movie business, Emma Roberts made her acting debut in Ted Demme's 2001 drama Blow, alongside Johnny Depp, at the age of nine. As the film about cocaine smuggler George Jung is rated R, her mother reportedly will not allow Roberts to see it before she turns eighteen. In 2001 Roberts also starred in Leif Tilden's 10-minute short film bigLove and was an uncredited extra in the Julia Roberts movie America's Sweethearts. She went on to appear in smaller roles in the family films Grand Champion and Spymate. In August 2003, Roberts was scheduled to shoot Daisy Winters, starring as the title character in the independent film, co-starring Rachel Weisz.[4] However, the film, which was written and to be directed by Beth LaMure and which would have been Roberts first leading role, got into budget problems and was never shot.
At age thirteen, Emma Roberts became a teen idol, starring as the lead character Addie Singer in the Nickelodeon series Unfabulous, which debuted in September 2004. The teen sitcom earned her a 2004 Teen Choice Award nomination and two nominations for the 2005 Young Artist Award and was quickly renewed for a second season. As her character on Unfabulous writes songs and records them on her computer, Nickelodeon soon also considered a career in music for Roberts, similar to other actress/pop singers such as Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan. Roberts first contributed the song "If I Had It My Way" to the soundtrack of Disney's 2005 film Ice Princess. It was followed by her debut album, Unfabulous and More: Emma Roberts, which was released on September 27, 2005 and is also the Unfabulous soundtrack.
In 2006 Emma Roberts will be appearing alongside singer JoJo in Aquamarine and is also set to star in Camp Couture (produced by her mother Kelly Cunningham) and Bras and Broomsticks. She also signed on to play Nancy Drew in Nancy Drew: The Mystery in Hollywood Hills, to be directed by Andrew Fleming.
