STONECREST, GEORGIA - OCTOBER 09: Kirk Franklin onstage during the Kirk Franklin Pop-Up Live "Father's Day" album performance at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church on October 09, 2023 in Stonecrest, Georgia. (Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images)
After meeting his biological father for the first time earlier this year, gospel icon Kirk Franklin is opening up about the experience. Notably, the “Melodies From Heaven” singer says that documenting the matter helped him “confront some things that [he] probably would have had a lot of trepidation addressing.”
Essence reports that Kirk shared his commentary during a virtual sit-down while he was busy traveling for The Reunion Tour, and he acknowledged that he was still grappling with the revelation about his paternity — which was chronicled in “Father’s Day: A Kirk Franklin Story.”
While the upload highlighted Kirk’s emotional journey towards meeting his biological father, Franklin acknowledges that there’s still a “numbness” within him.
“Just because you get introduced to love, doesn’t mean that you naturally respond to it. I spent 53 years hating a man because he wasn’t there, but it was also a man that had this hate that he didn’t deserve. I don’t just wake up, and go, ‘Oh, well, I had that wrong. Let me go love this guy.’ I’m feeling the numbness, like, what do I do with this?'”
Continuing, Kirk noted that he’s “still in the process of working through it.” Nonetheless, he added that one takeaway he had centered on “how traumas are transferable.” Additionally, Franklin said that, due to his upbringing, he noticed that he often finds himself “assimilating to the trauma.”
“This has happened 14 to 15 weeks ago. I am still in the process of working through it, but how it felt more than anything, was that it’s very interesting how traumas are transferable. It was a space that was not foreign to me because of how I was raised. … I’ve found myself assimilating to the trauma.”
However, Kirk shared that the experience of turning the journey into a documentary “helped [him] get through it.”
“I was able to hide behind Chris’ camera as I confronted a lot of these issues. It’s funny, because that’s been more regulatory than I first understood it to be. By documenting this, the camera gave me courage to confront some things that I probably would have had a lot of trepidation addressing on my own.”
He added. “It’s very nuanced why I was motivated to want to do this.”
During a meet-up with TODAY on Monday (Oct. 23), Kirk reiterated, “I found out that the man I hated all my life didn’t even deserve it ’cause he wasn’t my father. This new gentleman is my biological father.”
As The Shade Room reported, Kirk Franklin shared his journey with his aforementioned YouTube documentary, which aired last month.
In the upload, Kirk highlighted how rumors of a man named Richard Hubbard, who formerly dated Franklin’s mom, being his biological father, began circulating following a family funeral in April 2023.
After eventually doing a DNA test, Kirk found that Richard was indeed his father, though his estranged mother outright refused to accept the news.
