The pursuit of breaking generational curses inspired Kelly Rowland to reconnect with her father, Christopher Lovett, after 30 years of estrangement.
The vocalist, who recently concluded her time as the opener on Brandy and Monica's nationwide tour, explained why she reached out to her father on the Monday (Dec. 15) episode of podcast Mama, I Made It.
Around the 26-minute mark of the video below, Rowland said she thought she was OK with not having a relationship to her father until a few years ago, when she imagined her 11-year-old son, Titan, asking about his grandfather.
"What was I going to tell him?" Rowland said. "I could give him everything about his grandmother. But what am I going to tell him about my father?"
The vocalist has another son, 4-year-old Noah, with her husband of 10 years, Tim Witherspoon.
The former Destiny's Child member said that she "knew it was time" to meet Lovett, and she officially connected with him in 2020.
"And I put it off for so long. I was like, 'I just don't want to open this box. I don't know what's going to be behind here. This is enough trauma. Let me just figure it all out now,'" she said. "But when I was able to meet him and talk to him and look at him in his eye, I realized why I sang."
Rowland added that after she learned her paternal grandmother was a backing vocalist for late jazz musicians Lena Horne and Count Basie, she realized that she had to "step up" as she was living her grandmother's "dream."
"Even though I never met her, but it's for her, it's for him, it's for my kids. Like, it's just it was bigger than than me," she continued. "Meeting my father was bigger than me. It was about my kids and about the unknown in which I was nosy. I wanted to know."
The singer and actress added that her mended relationship with her father is "awesome" and that's she's "so excited" to spend another Christmas with him.
"He's got grandkids now. He's got a relationship with his daughter now. He's got things that I pray just make his life just a little bit longer so we have a little bit more time. But I just I love my time with him. It's beautiful," Rowland gushed.
In 2020, Rowland posted photos on Instagram that showed her catching up with Lovett and being "nervous to forgive him" after years of being apart.
"I have come to know SO much about myself, my family history, and even where my love of music & voice have come from!" she wrote.
