Gospel singer Kirk Franklin has released a documentary about his childhood and his biological father, with whom he recently reconciled.
The documentary, “Father’s Day: A Kirk Franklin Story,” tells Franklin’s story of being adopted when he was four by a woman named Gertrude, a then 64-year-old relative of Franklin’s, The Christian Post reports.
“There was never a time I didn’t know I was adopted. It was always a framework of who I was,” the 19-time Grammy Award-winning gospel singer shared in his new documentary. “I was raised alone; it was horrible.”
In the documentary, Franklin’s mother calls him to deny a rumor that a man who attended his aunt’s funeral was his biological father. Franklin had not attended the funeral because he didn’t want to see his mother.
The man had told a mutual friend that he had once dated Franklin’s mother.
While Franklin’s mother denied the rumor, the man, Richard Hubbard, provided DNA for testing that proved he was Franklin’s biological father.
His mother had previously told him that his father was a man named Dwight Allen. Allen died in 2020.
“I buried the man I thought was my father. I flew to Houston and made peace with him,” he said. “In 2017, I got an anonymous phone call that he was dying of cancer.”
But Franklin said the news that his father was actually Hubbard shocked him.
“This man is my father? My momma lied to me again?” Franklin asked himself.
“All I ever wanted was a dad,” he said.
Also, as part of the documentary, Franklin reunites with his birth mother to ask her about his father. She claimed the DNA test was incorrect, but a second test showed the same results.
Franklin also met with Hubbard.
“He didn’t know he had a son, and I didn’t even know I had a father that close. I was that close, that close to having a daddy,” Franklin declared. “I wanted a daddy so bad. Who am I? Because I have only known me broken.
“I would say to anyone who’s lived in a history of trauma like I have, I just want to remind you that you deserve so much more. If I didn’t have music to work on in the middle of this, I don’t think I would make it through this. People that I work with, they’ve become my family,” he said.
The Father’s Day documentary is part of the release of his upcoming album, also called Father’s Day. The album releases on Oct. 6.
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Bennett Raglin/Stringer
Amanda Casanova is a writer living in Dallas, Texas. She has covered news for ChristianHeadlines.com since 2014. She has also contributed to The Houston Chronicle, U.S. News and World Report and IBelieve.com. She blogs at The Migraine Runner.
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