Patti Smith<\/a> has revealed how she discovered the man who raised her was not her biological father.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Patti Smith has revealed how she discovered the man who raised her was not her biological father<\/p>\n
The 77-year-old musician and writer, often described as the \u201cgodmother of punk,\u201d revisits her life and career in Bread of Angels, published on 4 November by Random House, saying the revelation about her dad changed her understanding of her family.<\/p>\n
The book, which follows Patti\u2019s National Book Award-winning memoir Just Kids, traces her journey from childhood in Chicago to her years in music and motherhood. <\/p>\n
It also includes the discovery, made through DNA testing, she was not fathered by the man she grew up calling her dad.<\/p>\n
Speaking to People, Patti said the discovery caused her to rethink the story she had always believed. <\/p>\n
\nShe said: \u201cI wasn’t sure what to do with this information, because I wanted the book I was writing to be very truthful, and all of a sudden, I had a parallel truth.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cAnd I felt if I didn’t write about it, then it felt like truth was compromised.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThe revelation began with a conversation between Patti and her mother, Beverly, in 2002. <\/p>\n
\nDuring what the singer described as her \u201cdaily call\u201d, Beverly mentioned having \u201ca story about genetics\u201d to share next time they met. <\/p>\n
\nWhen Patti saw her mother again, Beverly had been hospitalised after a fall and could no longer remember the conversation.<\/p>\n
\nFamily speculation about Patti\u2019s parentage had existed for decades by that stage. <\/p>\n
\nHer great-grandmother had suspected Patti was fathered by her mother\u2019s uncle, but the idea was \u201cwaved away\u201d by her parents. <\/p>\n
\nIn 2012, Patti and her sister, Linda, took a DNA test and learned they were half-sisters. <\/p>\n
\nPattie writes in her book: \u201cWe wept. The results of our test put a great strain on my thought processes and for some time, I was unable to write.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nInitially, she believed the rumours about her great-uncle were true, but further genetic testing showed otherwise. <\/p>\n
\nShe added in her book: \u201cI had all but accepted the fact that I was fathered by my mother\u2019s Uncle Joe, and fully expected the results to confirm it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nInstead, an autosomal test revealed her paternal ancestry was \u201c100 percent Ashkenazi\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nThe breakthrough came through Patti\u2019s eldest daughter \u2013 the child she placed for adoption at 20 and later reunited with. Together, they traced her family line online and found her biological father, a man named Sidney. <\/p>\n
\nPatti said: \u201cI knew he was my father before I saw his face.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nShe later learned from a cousin that Sidney had died young and that his widow lived into her 90s, though she died before they could meet.<\/p>\n
\nPatti said the discovery prompted her to take two years off from working on Bread of Angels. <\/p>\n
\nShe added: \u201cAs I was expressing gratitude to anyone else, I wanted to acknowledge him. <\/p>\n
\n\u201cHe\u2019s also someone that was barely remembered. He had no children\u2026 and he\u2019s not someone that would be remembered pretty much by anyone. So I wanted to rectify that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nShe also reflected on her parents, Beverly and Grant, who raised her with openness. <\/p>\n
\nPatti said: \u201cI was brought up in such an open and humanist atmosphere that I know that my mother and father would appreciate that. <\/p>\n
\n\u201cI was sad to not be Grant’s biological daughter. I was sad to only have my sister, Linda, as a half-sister, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. Our love for each other, my love for my father, eclipses blood, and my love for my sister eclipses blood.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nReflecting on how her daughter helped uncover the truth, Patti quoted William Blake\u2019s The Tyger, saying: \u201cFearful symmetry. <\/p>\n
\n\u201cSymmetry in life can seem frightening or like fate has already designed everything. <\/p>\n
\n\u201cBut in other ways, it can seem quite beautiful. <\/p>\n
\n\u201cMy daughter\u2026 was the one who really helped. <\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt was a lot of sleuthing, a lot of detective work, a lot of following different bloodlines. But in the end, we found the exact person. It’s kind of a miracle, really.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5 November 2025 Patti Smith has revealed how she discovered the man who raised her was not her biological father. Patti Smith has revealed how she discovered the man who raised her was not her biological father The 77-year-old musician and writer, often described as the \u201cgodmother of punk,\u201d revisits her life and career in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":203255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12979,12976,12980,12977,12978,12981,5568,3640,2959,12982,12983],"class_list":{"0":"post-203254","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-beverly","9":"tag-fred-sonic-smith","10":"tag-grant","11":"tag-jackson","12":"tag-jesse","13":"tag-linda","14":"tag-patti-smith","15":"tag-robert-mapplethorpe","16":"tag-sidney","17":"tag-uncle-joe","18":"tag-william-blake"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}