Ciara Tearfully Reveals Her Parents Are 'Not Together Anymore' After 33 Years of Marriage
Ciara is opening up about a recent change in her family’s dynamic.
In a preview for a new episode of RuPaul‘s self-named talk show, Ciara, 33, revealed her parents Carlton and Jackie Harris have split.
“My parents were married for 33 years and they’re not together anymore,” Ciara said, fighting back tears.
“However, they are both happily married so it’s good,” Ciara explained, prompting the audience to erupt in applause.
While the “Level Up” singer is happy her parents have found love again, she shared their divorce was a “very out of body” experience for her.
“Imagine you go for 33 years of mom and dad being together and when I had my child, my son, my first child [Future], I was like, I just know mommy and daddy that made [a] baby was what the scenario was supposed to be,” she said.
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“That was like, whoa, when that happened,” she added.
Ciara went on to reveal that her parents separated when she began dating now-husband Russell Wilson.
Ciara and Russell’s relationship began in 2015, and they got married in 2016. They welcomed daughter Sienna in 2017.
The emotional reveal comes just a few weeks after Ciara opened up about another ended romance — her engagement to Future.
The singer split from the rapper, 35, in 2014, just three months after the pair welcomed son Future.
Looking back, Ciara says that despite the fear that came with choosing to be a single mom, the course of action was the right one, as it relieved her of her greatest fear: wasting her life.
“I grew up with my mom and dad being together. The idea of it being mommy and daddy that made baby,” she said on Jada Pinkett Smith’s Facebook Watch series Red Table Talk. “Also, you’re living your life in front of the world, so that adds a whole ‘nother layer. I feel like I’m failing right now, they gon’ roast me.”
She continued, “The one thing I fear in life is really wasting my life. I really fear that ‘cause you realize that time does not stop, and it will be the worst scenario to stay in a situation that it’s just not healthy, it’s not going to get any better. I realized that I have to start making different decisions.”
Among those decisions was committing to ending her relationship, a choice Ciara said she wavered on for a long time before realizing she wasn’t getting what she wanted out of life.
“When I was thinking about my son, I know what I want to feel. I know the kind of love that I want for us,” she said. “What I did was – [son] Future was like my teddy bear. So I was like, we gon’ go. We ‘bout to do this thing together.”
The star said she also looked to her parents’ marriage as guidance, comparing their love to her own relationship — and not liking the results. “I had to take a couple of times to figure it out, but my dad’s love is what saved me in all my situations, because it would get to a point where I was like, my dad wouldn’t do this to my mom. This can’t be love,” she explained. “I’ve always had the same goal of wanting to be loved a certain way, but I was just walking in the wrong direction.”
