Gospel artist Kirk Franklin has released a new documentary about his painful experience of adoption and how he finally found his biological father.
The documentary, Father's Day: A Kirk Franklin Story, takes viewers on a personal journey with the Grammy Award-winning singer, starting with his experience of being raised by a distant relative named Gertrude who was 64 at the time.
He was raised as an only child and recalled the experience as being "horrible".
"There was never a time I didn't know I was adopted. It was always a framework of who I was," he said.
Later on, he discovered that the man he thought was his father was not his father after all. He even attended this man's funeral after receiving an anonymous phone call in 2017 that he was dying of cancer.
"I buried the man I thought was my father. I flew to Houston and made peace with him," he said.
Then a rumour started circulating at the funeral of one of Franklin's aunts that a different man was possibly his father. His mother called him to say that the rumours were false but the man in question - who lived nearby - nonetheless offered to take a DNA test to put the matter to rest.
It turned out that the DNA test confirmed that the man was in fact his biological father.
The moment Franklin found out was captured in the documentary.
"This man is my father? My momma lied to me again?" he said, adding that he had "suffered so much as a young man without guidance".
"I struggled with love, intimacy, faith, identity. And to know that the answer was less than 10 minutes away," he said.
The documentary shows the emotional moment he and his biological father came face to face.
"All I ever wanted was a dad," said Franklin.
Father's Day: A Kirk Franklin Story is available to watch on YouTube.
