Kelley Earnhardt-Miller Says It Took “A Lot Of Therapy” To Move On After Her Stepmom, Teresa, Destroyed Her Father’s Company

I can only imagine…

If you’ve been online at all over the last couple weeks and are a sports fan in any capacity, you’ve probably seen clips and articles from the recently released Prime Video series Earnhardt, which focuses on the life and legacy of the late, great NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt. Featuring interviews from Dale’s friends, family, and obviously his son, Dale Jr., the documentary also features never-before-seen footage of Dale during his racing career from both his personal and professional life.

It’s an incredibly interesting, and nuanced, look at Dale Earnhardt the race car driver, the man, the friend and the father, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.  and his sister Kelley played a huge part in the production of the series, in addition to being heavily featured in it, telling stories about their dad and memories that were both good and bad.

There’s a ton of details about his life with his widow, Teresa Earnhardt, who is not exactly a well-liked character in the world of NASCAR to put it nicely… she infamously kept Dale Jr. from being part of Dale Earnhardt Inc. after Dale Sr’s tragic death at Daytona in 2001, and that’s just scratching the surface on some of the issues she’s had with others in the family, mostly between her and her step children.

It’s honestly really sad for Earnhardt kids that they have been put in this position in terms of all the public battles they’ve had with their stepmom, and while they do have a half sister named Taylor, who Teresa had with Dale, it’s unclear what their relationship is like because they never really speak about her publicly. I mean, Teresa was fighting with Dale Jr. and Kelley’s mom Brenda way back in the day…

Kelley seems to have always been the “mom” of the siblings, and she even talks about choosing to go to military school as a teenager because Dale Jr. had been sent there by his dad and stepmom, and she knew he needed her and she needed to make sure he was okay. She immediately connected with Kerry once they met as kids, and she was even excited about having a baby to help take care of when she came back from military school to meet her new baby sister, Taylor, the only child Dale and Teresa share.

She seems like an incredibly strong woman, and Dale Jr. has talked many times about how much she meant to him growing up, because there was so much time where it was just the two of them. Kelley is now the co-owner and CEO of a company with her brother, Jr. Motorsports, and a very well-respected executive in the racing world. By all accounts, she has done extremely well for herself, and she had a lot on her as a child and the eldest daughter of Dale Earnhardt.

And that was a weight she carried for many years, and in the documentary, you learn that Kelley and her father had a complicated relationship, like Dale did with most of his kids, including Dale Jr. and his oldest son Kerry, as well. Like many father/daughter relationships, they didn’t always see eye to eye, and Kelley talked about how she hadn’t talked to her dad for three weeks leading up to his fatal wreck at Daytona in 2001.

In an Instagram story where a follower asked her for advice on how to handle the loss of a parent when you’re not on the best terms with them, she responded with a very honest answer, saying she had been through “a lot of therapy” to help her cope with not only losing her dad, but everything that happened with her stepmom in the wake of that tragedy.

His company, DEI, was shut down after several years of Teresa running it without them, more on that HERE, and Kelley said it was hard to watch everything her dad worked so hard for “fall apart,” especially considering she couldn’t control any of it:

“Honestly, it’s taken a lot of therapy. It was not just being on good terms that took its toll, but the lack of family support and relationship with Teresa and everything that I felt my dad worked hard for watching it all fall apart in the aftermath of his death.

In therapy, I had to work hard to heal ‘little Kelley’ so big Kelley could exist. A lot of self talk, grace, being a parent myself and much more.”

I just can’t imagine how hard all of that was, but it’s so impressive the way Jr. and Kelley have built Jr. Motorsports into a growing powerhouse, and I know they’ve surely made their dad proud now.

I really can’t say enough good things about the doc, and you can watch the trailer here:

The post Kelley Earnhardt-Miller Says It Took “A Lot Of Therapy” To Move On After Her Stepmom, Teresa, Destroyed Her Father’s Company first appeared on Whiskey Riff.