Grammy-winning Gospel superstar Kirk Franklin’s new documentary chronicles how he located his real biological dad after decades of searching while working on his new project. Franklin started working on his new album earlier this year and chose for the first time to have a videographer capture behind- the-scenes moments.
Franklin, 53, says he recorded the first song in March, and just one month later, his entire world began to change. He says he could have never planned for what he was about to discover. What the cameras ended up capturing was an intense, emotional journey the star went on after suddenly learning that his real biological father had not died several years ago but was indeed alive. With compiled footage from these events, Franklin streamed a short documentary last month on his YouTube channel titled Father’s Day.
The documentary highlighted his recollection of being bullied as a kid, and his learning disorder as well as him becoming a teenage father. He explains how his adoptive mother was a 64-year-old widow and did the best she could do; but he felt abandoned by her as he got older because he believed he was becoming an irritant to her. When Franklin was six, he was introduced to a man his biological mother said was his biological father–but only saw him and his biological mother sporadically at age 13 and after his first album came out at various concerts. He became bitter over the years and did not know which way to turn. After the man whom he believed was his biological father died, Franklin said he became resolved and visited him to forgive him for not being the dad he needed.
Fast forward to spring of this year, while recording his new album, a singer Franklin had hired from his hometown told him that she’d met a man by the name of Richard Hubbard at a funeral who said he’d once dated Franklin’s mom and lived in the same neighborhood Franklin grew up in all of his life. As rumors started to fly around, Hubbard submitted a DNA test. The results were a 99.9 percent match for paternity. ‘To live over half a century with somebody who lived in the same city as you…’ says Franklin, who is still grappling with the news, ‘I suffered so much as a young man without guidance. I struggled with love, intimacy, faith, and identity, and to know that the answer was less than 10 minutes away.’
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