The ‘Flipping Out’ star disparaged the school and some of the parents on air.
Jeff Lewis says his actions are to blame for his 2-year-old daughter, Monroe, being expelled from her Montessori school. Not that this knowledge will have him admit to wrong-doing.
The 49-year-old Flipping Out star opened up about the news on his SiriusXM show Jeff Lewis Live on Tuesday, noting he’d gotten a phone call from the school’s headmistress, asking him to come in regarding an “issue.”
“There was a part of me that thought maybe I did something, but I really thought maybe Monroe did something. I was kind of hoping that maybe Monroe did do something like she bit someone or threw sand in someone’s face,” he quipped. “We could only hope it was her and not me.”
Lewis went on to note that he “got into character” with the intention of being falsely apologetic over the unknown issue.
“Within the first few minutes, she just laid it out and said, ‘Look, we’re going to be expelling Monroe,’” he said. “And I spent the next 15 minutes in character.”
He added that he tried his best to get his daughter to stay in the school, noting, “I did appeal to her, I said, ‘Look, this is my first misstep here,’ and I said, ‘Look, I am so sorry. What can I do to make this right?’”
So what led to the headmistress’ decision? Turns out, Lewis has made several disparaging comments about the school and the parents on air.
He admitted that he was “especially critical” of Back to School Night, saying the lengthy event made him feel “like I was being lectured as a parent.”
“I am very open to parenting advice from people that I know or friends, but I don’t really want to sit for 45 minutes and be lectured on how I should parent my child,” he said.
But it seems his main error was personally calling out some parents on a school email chain.
“I mentioned the first names, I did not mention the last names,” he said. “I’ve never mentioned the name of the school. I’ve never mentioned the location of the school, nothing.”
But apparently one parent, whom he referred to as “Nikki in Sherman Oaks,” was the wrong person to mess with.
“I messed with Reese Witherspoon in Big Little Lies because somebody really rallied and got everybody together and everybody fired up to get Monroe expelled,” Lewis said, referencing the high-strung mom on the HBO series.
He also noted that the conversation turned ugly after the first few minutes of groveling.
“It got a bit contentious. I just said, ‘I can’t believe that this is the Montessori way. You don’t get to make amends. There’s no second chances. You can’t apologize. No warning, nothing,’” he said. “She said that by doing this she is ‘protecting’ Monroe. I said, ‘Excuse me, how are you doing this by expelling her?’”
He added that the headmistress noted she wanted to keep the situation quiet, and then he admitted to seemingly threatening her with publicly calling her out.
Lewis noted that he relayed the incident to his former partner, Gage Edward, whom he said “lost his s**t.” Edward called the school and then called Lewis back, yelling at him for threatening the headmistress.
“Gage was really, really upset and he did yell at me and he did say some things that he probably regrets now,” Lewis quipped.
The pair split earlier this year.
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