Kerry Washington Discovered She Was Conceived Through Sperm Donor After Doing ‘Finding Your Roots’
Kerry Washington is set to release her memoir, Thicker Than Water, on Tuesday, September 26, in which she touches on her family history and the discovery that she was conceived through a sperm donor.
The Scandal star reveals she first learned about her biological past in 2018 with the help of the Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr.-hosted PBS series Finding Your Roots. As Washington explained to the New York Times, the revelation came to light after she went to collect DNA spit samples from her parents.
She had to tell Gates that her dad was “really uncomfortable” and unlikely to give her the samples. Gates went to speak to the parents privately, which is when they asked if Washington not being their biological child would “come up in the testing.” Gates suggested they have that conversation with their daughter.
After her mom and dad finally told her the truth, Washington said it was liberating as she now at least had an explanation for her feeling of “not quite belonging.”
“I’ve always had this weird disconnect with my dad, but I thought that was my fault,” she said. “I thought I wasn’t a kind enough person. But the idea that I was not his never occurred to me. It was just, why can’t I be better to him? Why can’t we be closer? What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with us?”
The Golden Globe-nominated actress added that she “immediately felt guilty because I could see how much pain my parents were in, my dad in particular.”
But she also felt resentment. “I was birthed into a lie,” she said. “I was playing a supporting character in my parents’ story. It felt like I’d been wandering through a library my whole life, looking for a specific book about myself. My mom and dad were these librarians who said, ‘There’s a room we haven’t shown you.’”
Washington said she has tried to find her biological father, but there has been no way to identify him. She also revealed that her mom planned to leave a note about her biological past in a safe deposit box
“I was like, ‘You’ve had cancer three times and you’re knocking on 80,’” Washington recalled. “‘At what point were you going to write that note?’”
She added, “I will be forever grateful to Skip Gates.”
