Kerry Washington has revisited the time she discovered her father wasn’t her biological parent, sharing that he had panic attacks when it came time to inform her.
On the latest episode of Call Her Daddy, which was shared on Wednesday (March 18), the Scandal star recounted finding out in 2018 that her mother, Valerie, used a sperm donor to conceive due to fertility issues.
Washington shared the exact moment that her father, Earl Washington, began having a distressed reaction to her wanting to be on PBS series Finding Your Roots, where she would discover her family history.
"So I call up my parents and I'm like, 'I bumped into Skip Gates. I'm going to do Finding Your Roots. We're going to learn everything we can possibly learn about our family,'" Washington recalled around the 48-minute mark in the clip above. "And my dad started having panic attacks. And I couldn't figure it out."
While Washington’s mother thought it was a "great" idea, the actor said her father was "not happy," which prompted her to be concerned about what he was "afraid of."
“Are you worried that you're going to find out like your great-grandmother had a brothel? What could possibly be the issue?" Washington joked.
She then offered for her parents to meet with Roots host Henry Louis Gates Jr. first, who "hypothetically" asked about how their daughter's genealogical test would be impacted by the discovery of a sperm donor.
"He was like, 'Definitely it would, and you need to tell her,'" Washington explained.
Her parents eventually met with her discuss the matter but "fumbled through" the conversation, which Washington thought was a "weird prank." "I was so confused and also also at the exact same time, I felt like, 'Yes, this is it. This is the puzzle piece that I've been trying to solve for my entire life.'"
While Washington expressed that she was "lied to" about her origins, she’s made "peace" with herself.
In a 2023 interview with People, Washington said that she had redeveloped "love and compassion and understanding" for her parents after learning the truth.
"Taking this deep dive into our family history made me put myself in their shoes and think about the things that they've had to navigate and what they've been through and what they've sacrificed. And it really made me feel closer to them," she said.
The memory was also shared in Washington’s 2023 book, Thicker Than Water.
