Kirk Franklin opens up about 'Father's Day' documentary and connecting with his dad for the first time
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Today (Dec. 25), VIBE published an interview with Kirk Franklin, who is fresh off his “Reunion Tour” with Israel Houghton, The Clark Sisters, David and Tamela Mann, and Tye Tribbett. In the feature, the gospel legend spoke on Father’s Day, a heart-gripping documentary that saw him learning about and connecting with his biological father for the first time.
“Well, first of all, I think forgiveness is free, but trust is earned. The second thing is my father didn’t do anything to be forgiven for because he didn’t know,” Franklin made clear when asked if said reunion equated to absolution. “I just think that I’m in a multiplicity of seasons right now, and I’m trying to just find my way through because it’s very complex, very nuanced. I’m trying my best to just get through it and try to understand it as much as possible.”
He was also asked whether or not meeting his real father, a man named Richard Hubbard, helped or hindered his Christian faith. “I think there’ve been moments of both. There is a duality to it all, that the God that gives is the same God that takes away. And so you find yourself in that dichotomy,” he said in response.
As REVOLT previously reported, Father’s Day – which boasted an accompanying album of the same name – saw Franklin explaining to viewers how, through what his biological mother, Debra Jones, told him all his life, he previously believed that another man, the late Dwight Allen, was his actual dad.
“I buried the man I thought was my father. I flew to Houston and made peace with him,” the musician said. “In 2017, I got an anonymous phone call that he was dying of cancer.” The revelation with Hubbard also helped Franklin patch things up with his son, Kerrion, who he’d been estranged from for years after a widely publicized fallout.
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