As a teenager touring with Destiny’s Child, Kelly Rowland would refuse her father’s presence at their performances. This week, he sat in the audience with her son while she dedicated a song to him.
Kelly Rowland, who has been on the tour as an opener on Monica and Brandy’s “The Boy Is Mine” tour, took some time to shout out her father during her performance in Atlanta on Thursday. It was the first time he had ever been to one of her shows.
Tina Knowles, Rowland’s “aunt” and unofficial adoptive mother, was one of the people who captured the moment.
“i am in tears looking at this. They are tears of joy,” Knowles wrote in the caption. “It was my Prayer that @kellyrowland would someday reunite with her dad. She did a few years ago. They are so happy with each other.This is truly a joy to see.”
Rowland and her father, Christopher Lovett, had been estranged for most of her life, but reconnected in 2018 and have been building a relationship ever since. In a 2022 interview with the ‘Today’ show on NBC, the two discussed how Rowland was so upset with Lovett that she had security keep him out of her performances when she would tour with Destiny’s Child.
“People used to tell me, ‘I saw your daughter,’ and I used to sit there and say, ‘Well, I didn’t,’ and it used to hurt,” Lovett said.
In a full circle moment, the “Motivation” singer has turned a new chapter, not only having her father at the show, but dedicating a performance to him.
“I love and need and want you,” she sang to him.
