Country star’s love for mistaken daughter unchanged after DNA test surprise
Country singer Rory Feek wrote in a blog post that he wasn't shocked when one of his daughters told him she was not his biological child. It changes nothing, he said. He still loves her as his daughter, even if she technically is not.
NASHVILLE – Country singer Rory Feek says he wasn’t shocked to hear his daughter’s startling announcement that he wasn’t her biological dad.
In a post on his blog Tuesday, Feek recounts the meeting with his daughter Hopie Feek where she told him that a DNA test from 23andMe showed Feek’s former wife was indeed her mom, but that another man was her biological father.
Later that same day, Hopie revealed on Instagram she took the DNA test after feeling for a long time she was “a bit different.”
“I got the results I never knew I needed,” she said. The tests showed her biological father was someone she identified only as B.C. She told how she found and met with him after getting the results.
Previously: Country star’s ‘daughter’ reveals test confirms ‘Dad’ wasn’t really her dad
Rory, in his blog post, recounts getting a call from Hopie, who asked if they could meet. Hopie said she had something she wanted to tell him before it became public.
He recalled Hopie telling him that her birth mom had told her that there had been someone else, and that she was fairly certain Hopie was his child.
“So, I took the test, and it confirmed what she said,” Hopie told him. “You’re not my father”.
Rory, in his blog post, said he was silent at first, processing what his daughter had just said. Then he told her he had not known but had some suspicions.
“It doesn’t completely surprise me,” he recalled saying.
In the blog post Feek recounts returning from military service in Japan being surprised shortly after that to find his wife, Tamara Gilmer, was pregnant. When Hopie was born in 1988, a doctor told him she was delivered a few weeks past full term, and for Feek, the math didn’t add up.
When the marriage broke up in 1992, Gilmer initially insisted on taking Hopie with her, but leaving her older sister, Heidi, with Feek. He recalls asking her then if Hopie was his child, he said in the post, and that she insisted that was the case.
Ultimately, Feek raised both girls after Gilmer left.
Hopie’s DNA results don’t change anything, Feek wrote in his blog.
“I told her I didn’t care. ... I love you as my daughter and I always will,” Feek wrote.
“My love for Hopie isn’t based on us having the same blood running through our veins, I love her because she’s my child, even if technically ... she’s not.”
Feek remarried in 2002. He and his new wife, Joey, performed as Joey + Rory, making a half-dozen albums and tv specials, winning Grammies and selling nearly a million records from 2008 to 2016, according to the website for Homestead at Hardison Mill, Feek’s restored historic farm, home and concert hall south of Nashville.
As a songwriter, Feek has written multiple No. 1 songs, including “Some Beach” by Blake Shelton, “A Little More Country Than That” by Easton Corbin, and “The Chain of Love” by Clay Walker, along with having his songs recorded by other artists, including Reba McEntire, Waylon Jennings, Buck Owens, Collin Raye and Mark Wills.
Feek and Joey had one daughter, Indiana, who was born in 2014. Joey died of cancer in 2016. Rory remarried again in 2024.
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