Cuba Gooding Jr. on spoiling his daughter, summer camp and more

Piper Adelaide Gooding, 22 months, is not only the queen of the Gooding household, but, as the only girl and the youngest of three, she’s "so spoiled" as well, dad Cuba admits. Why? Blame her adorable good looks. 

Because she’s so cute. She’s got two big brothers [Spencer, 12, and Mason, 10], a dad who travels a lot, so when he’s there, all he wants to do is…She stays on my shoulder. I threw my back out because she was on my shoulder for eight hours. I didn’t even realize it. I would just lean against the wall when I got tired. And she would fall asleep on there, hold my head, and kind of pull my face around and just be sitting up there, do you know what I mean?

They’re excited to go the night before. They don’t sleep. They get on the bus. They drive up there. They call crying. ‘Oh, this is a mistake.’ Right? Then we get the first couple of weepy postcards and then you don’t hear from them. So you think ‘Uh-oh.’ And then they show up and they’re dirty and smelly because they forgot to shower the entire two weeks and they’re like, ‘The best time ever. Can’t wait ’til next year.’

Every year it’s the same thing and it’s great because it is a bit of adult responsibilities. They have to fend for themselves, but it’s great…And then my youngest boy is a Boy Scout. I’ve been the chaperone on a couple of those camping excursions.

[Piper] says some of the sassiest things. You can’t help but laugh. Now what if somebody saw one of those things and made her famous because of that? Now she’s an adult, she’s got an album out, she’s going to the clubs, and she’s like, ‘Well, I’ve been this way my whole life and I accept it.’ I mean, what confusion can these people take from that? They have to grow up and become adults first, I think. And then all of this praise and money and adult responsibility, they can do that.