The 'Motivation' songstress reconnected with her father after 30 years in 2018.
Kelly Rowland shared her personal story of forgiveness and how it allowed her to reconnect with her father after 30 years. On Tuesday, the Destiny’s Child alum was a guest host on Today, where she appeared in a segment alongside Hoda Kotb and discussed the moment that she chose to reach out to her father after not speaking for 30 years.
The “Motivation” singer shared that it was JAY-Z who gave her a key piece of advice before she met her father in 2018. “He said, ‘Love is all about risk. You gotta decide if you’re gonna jump,’" she recalled. "'You gonna jump?' That's what he asked me: 'Are you gonna jump?'”
During the interview, Rowland explained that she was raised by her single mother after her father decided that he wasn’t ready for parenthood. “I had a wonderful mom who supported me and loved me, but the truth is, there was always a piece of me that was kinda missing,” she shared. “For 30 years, my dad was absent in my life.”
Finally, a few years after the birth of her first son, Titan, and the death of her mother in 2014, she decided it was time to meet her father. “At that time, I think I still had these feeling of ‘Oh my god, I have no parents’ and it was like, 'No, you do, you have one left,'" she shared.
Rowland then arranged to meet him in a hotel in Atlanta and gave him the space to talk freely for two hours while she just listened. Part of her path to forgiveness was learning and understanding that parents deserve grace.
“I learned that we are not perfect, and it broke my heart to know that there is going to be something about me that my kids is going to be disappointed about,” Rowland said through tears. “Something, you don’t do it intentionally of course. You have to allow space. You’re not going to get it right every time and that’s OK.”
She continued, “I had to give my dad grace. As parents, we have to give our parents grace. It’s never too late. Forgiveness is always right there.”
Her father, Christopher Lovett, joined her for part of the interview and said that their meeting was “like a dream.”
The mother of two shared how important is was for her healing to hear her father say he loved her. “It was necessary to the little girl in me that needed to hear that,” she told Kotb. “It was necessary to hear it from a man. It was necessary to hear it from my father and when I thought about all the tumultuous relationships and trying to figure out men, like, that is the base and the foundation of it psychologically. So when I'm talking to therapists and I'm asking them about this, it all runs back to the abandonment issue.”
As for others estranged from their own loved ones, the singer offered some advice. “I'd have to say, brace yourself and ask yourself a couple of questions: Am I ready for this? Am I ready for, no matter the outcome, whether it’s good or bad? Because the truth is, you don’t want to set yourself up. Everybody’s always scared of the other side, and you don’t know if this person is embracing you with open arms, or if they're not ready,” she said.
“And if they’re not ready, that’s OK. That’s their way of shielding you from themselves, and if they don’t want to allow you into that world, they obviously know that it's already hard enough dealing with themselves, and if they don’t want to allow you in that space that’s OK," she added. "Then set yourself free from that.”
She continued, “And just know that you are loved regardless. And surrounded yourself with people who want to support you and love and dote on you.”
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