Today, Alicia Keys has loving men in her life, namely her husband, Swizz Beatz, and their son, Egypt. But, in her earlier years, Keys was missing the one man whose love mattered the most to her: her father, Craig Cook. But now, after years apart, Keys has revealed that she and her father have reunited and are working to repair their relationship.
Keys’ father left her mother, Teresa Cook, to raise her as a single parent when she was just 2-years-old and the singer saw little of her father after he left. But in a new interview with Britain’s You magazine, Keys explains that she reunited with her father when her grandmother’s health began deteriorating.
“The process started when my [paternal] grandmother became ill,” she said. “You realize what’s important when you see a person you love dearly and you’re not going to have them for long. It was important to her. And I saw [my father’s] love for her. I realized he wasn’t an evil person so I said, ‘Can we start from this point on? Can we be friends? I can start to understand you and you can start to understand me.’”
It’s been a rocky road for Keys to reach this new phase with her father. The singer recalls that her childhood was marred by his absence and that she was left bitter and hurt growing up without a father.
“My father and I are fine now,” she shared. “I would say in the process of growing up, you realize you’ve been holding on to anger. I was angry then and am sure I had the right to be angry, but if you hold on to all this anger, the only person you’re hurting is you.”
Ironically, one thing that has helped Keys and Cook’s second chance at a relationship is his own second chance at fatherhood as a grandparent to Egypt.
“I feel both me and my father have grown up,” she said. “I think something happens when you become a grandparent. You have a different mind-set. There’s less pressure on the relationship, so maybe it’s closer. He was with Egypt last week and he loved it.”
It’s great that Keys and her father are working to mend their relationship and, luckily, she’s not the only star who has made peace with their estranged father. Check out some other stars once in her shoes below. – nicholas robinson
