James Van Der Beek’s eldest daughter, Olivia, has made her live television debut.
“When I was 15, I first told my mom I wanted to audition professionally. She didn’t hold me back. She took me to NYC and she walked me through it,” Van Der Beek, 46, wrote via Instagram on Thursday, February 29. “So when the opportunity to do #WeAreFamilyFox came up and my 13-year-old lit up like a carbon copy of me at that age. I let her put herself on tape. I got her some voice lessons. And I walked her through it.”
He continued, “She’d never sung in front of people before. So proud of my baby girl.”
Olivia, 13, was one of the contestants on Fox’s We Are Family, a music competition show where celebrity relatives show off their own musical talents. Each performance includes a duet with their famous relative. For Olivia, that meant singing alongside the Dawson’s Creek alum during the Wednesday, February 28, episode.
Van Der Beek, in disguise in the set’s “sphere,” joined his daughter for a rendition of Lee Ann Womack’s “I Hope You Dance.”
“When I watched her tonight, all I could see was the newborn in the bassinet who I could not stop looking at in awe,” James, who shares Olivia with wife Kimberly Van Der Beek, concluded his post. “Kid’s still got it 😇.”
Alongside his Instagram caption, James uploaded footage taken backstage with Olivia.
“I want to do it again! And I will do it again,” Olivia gushed in the clip after their performance wrapped.
James and Kimberly, who wed in August 2010, share six children: Olivia, Joshua, 12, Annabel, 10, Emilia, 7, Gwendolyn, 5, and Jeremiah, 2. (Kimberly, 41, has also suffered multiple miscarriages.)
James has been candid about fatherhood through the years, exclusively telling Us Weekly how the coronavirus pandemic impacted his view of parenting.
“Just really learning to prioritize. I think we’ve all come to this realization that we were all so busy before with stuff that didn’t really serve us and didn’t necessarily make us happy,” James told Us in September 2020. “So now it’s like, ‘What am I building my life around?’ [I realized] so many of the things that I entertained doing were either based [on] some outdated idea of what I thought would be important to make me happy or somebody else’s hope or dream or expectation.”
He continued at the time, “It’s just been a real lesson in being present and recognizing how much more I need to be present, with my kids and family, and what’s really important. I’ve been paying a lot more attention to what I consume in terms of food, media, stories, entertainment. Does it enrich me? Does it make me happy? Does it give me energy? And how do I feel afterward?”
One month later, James and Kimberly moved their family from Los Angeles to the suburbs of Texas.
