In July 2023, Ryan O’Neal shared a screenshot on Instagram of a Downtown Los Angeles article about Patrick O’Neal’s career as a sportscaster. “My dad is my biggest fan,” said Patrick, who calls games for the Los Angeles Angels. “Hearing him tell me how proud he is of me for my work doing play-by-play for the Angels is really special to me.” In his caption, Ryan lavished his son with more fatherly praise, writing, “Proud of my boy.”
In a 2009 Vanity Fair interview, Ryan pointed to his children’s many troubles as proof that he hasn’t been a great parent. He also said something pretty harsh about Patrick, whose mother is actor Leigh Taylor-Young: “He’s not likable.” But according to Patrick, he and Ryan were always close. In a 2012 HuffPost essay titled “In Defense of Dad,” Patrick slammed the media for its fixation on his family’s woes and responded to speculation that his father wasn’t a major part of his life. “If you add up the number of sporting events my dad and I watched together on TV over the years, we are talking tens of thousands of hours,” he wrote.
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It was Patrick who announced the death of the man he says made him a good father to his girls. “My father Ryan O’Neal has always been my hero,” he wrote on Instagram. “I looked up to him and he was always bigger than life.”
