Kelly Rowland has reconciled with her father, Christopher Lovett, after being estranged for 30 years.
During the latest episode of the podcast Mama, I Made It, Rowland said she wondered what her children would ask her about their grandfather.
“What was I going to tell him?” Rowland said. “I could give him everything about his grandmother. But what am I going to tell him about my father?”
Rowland said that she “knew it was time” to meet Lovett after making the connection with him in 2020.
“And I put it off for so long. I was like, ‘I just don’t want to open this box. I don’t know what’s going to be behind here. This is enough trauma. Let me just figure it all out now,” she said. “But when I was able to meet him and talk to him and look him in his eye, I realized why I sang.”
Rowland said she learned her paternal grandmother was a backing vocalist for late jazz legends Lena Horne and Count Basie. Then she realized that she had to “step up” as she was living her grandmother’s “dream.”
“Even though I never met her, it’s for her, it’s for him, it’s for my kids. Like, it’s just it was bigger than me,” Rowland continued. “Meeting my father was bigger than me. It was about my kids and about the unknown in which I was nosy. I wanted to know.”
Rowland went on to say that her relationship with her father is “awesome” now. Also, he’s “so excited” to spend another Christmas with him and the rest of her family
“He’s got grandkids now, and he’s got a relationship with his daughter now. He’s got things that I pray just make his life just a little bit longer, so we have a little bit more time. But I just love my time with him. It’s beautiful,” Rowland added.
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