{"id":248231,"date":"2026-06-25T00:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/25\/alicia-keys-cut-dad-out-of-her-life-in-letter-aged-13-after-his-years-of-abandonment\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T00:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:00:15","slug":"alicia-keys-cut-dad-out-of-her-life-in-letter-aged-13-after-his-years-of-abandonment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/25\/alicia-keys-cut-dad-out-of-her-life-in-letter-aged-13-after-his-years-of-abandonment\/","title":{"rendered":"Alicia Keys cut dad out of her life in letter aged 13 after his years of abandonment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"byline\">\n<p>        <time itemprop=\"datePublished\" content=\"2026-06-25\" datetime=\"1782345615\" pubdate=\"\">25 June 2026<\/time>\n    <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/alicia-keys\/\" class=\"exposure-link \" data-linktrack=\"LinkTracker,articleExposure,alicia-keys\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alicia Keys<\/a> cut her dad out of her life aged 13 in a heartbreaking letter after years of hurt by his abandonment.<\/p>\n<p>                            <\/p>\n<p class=\"image-caption landscape\">Singer-songwriter Alicia Keys<\/p>\n<p>The 45-year-old singer-songwriter let Craig Cook know how &#8220;furious&#8221; she was over his failings, including being absent for her birth in January 1981, and walking out on the If I Ain&#8217;t Got You hitmaker when she was two.<\/p>\n<p>Per the Daily Mail, the letter, revealed in the documentary, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/alicia-keys\/\" class=\"exposure-link \" data-linktrack=\"LinkTracker,articleExposure,alicia-keys\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alicia Keys<\/a>: Girl From Hell&#8217;s Kitchen, read: &#8220;I don&#8217;t want anything. All I want is for you to mind your business. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want the phone calls, I don&#8217;t want the letters, I don&#8217;t want the fake acts that you pull to try and make me think you care. I don&#8217;t want anything. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s the only way you can make me happy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nIn the film, Craig admitted he was &#8220;immature&#8221; when Terria Joseph Augello, whom he dated three times when she got pregnant, gave birth to Alicia &#8211; full name Alicia Augello Cook &#8211; and was not ready to take on the responsibilities of fatherhood at the time.<\/p>\n<p>\nHe recalled: &#8220;She [Terria] called a couple of times, told me she was pregnant. I was like OK. It wasn&#8217;t in me, I wasn&#8217;t there, I wasn&#8217;t ready. I was immature.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nAlicia said: &#8220;My father wasn&#8217;t there when I was born\u2026on that evening, Mommy lay in bed, wondering how she would come up with the money for the hospital bill.<\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;The story of that day is, in many ways, the story of my relationship with Craig. <\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;He wasn&#8217;t there and, once the difficult moments had come and gone, he would suddenly show up. Only to vanish again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nTerria raised the Girl on Fire artist as a single mom living in Hell&#8217;s Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City, working several jobs and putting her theatre aspirations on hold to afford her daughter&#8217;s piano lessons.<\/p>\n<p>\nAlicia remembered when Craig turned up at his mom&#8217;s house, he told her, &#8220;Here&#8217;s your grandchild&#8221;, handed the 17-time Grammy winner over, and then left again.<\/p>\n<p>\nShe grew close to her paternal grandparents, with his dad, an ex-police officer, being the &#8220;main father figure&#8221; in her life, but Alicia remained hurt by Craig&#8217;s absence.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe Empire State of Mind performer remembered: &#8220;Mom was (one year) enduring a particularly stressful financial season and would often find herself short on rent. Mom worked hours and hours. She would come home and sleep real quick and go back to work.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nAlicia opened up about her feelings about Craig through her songwriting.<\/p>\n<p>\nShe said: &#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of promises of different meetings and moments between Craig and I and those moments wouldn&#8217;t come, they&#8217;d be delayed or deferred.<\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;I remember that happening for a long time, I was just like I don&#8217;t want to feel like that, I don&#8217;t want it to be halfway. <\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;I was so furious, I was so over it, I didn&#8217;t care anymore, and I wanted him to know it, I wanted everybody to know it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nCraig admitted feeling unsure &#8220;if I can read it (the letter)&#8217; because it is so painful&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>\nHe noted there was &#8220;growth on both our parts&#8221; that made a relationship possible for the pair, adding: &#8220;That&#8217;s who I was then, that&#8217;s not who I am now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nAlicia and Craig&#8217;s conflict lasted until she penned and produced her 2023 Broadway show, Hell&#8217;s Kitchen, which was loosely based on her life.<\/p>\n<p>\nShe said writing the father character based on her was a &#8220;big vehicle for healing&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nHer grandmother&#8217;s &#8220;dying wish&#8221; for a &#8220;family unity&#8221; made Alicia think differently.<\/p>\n<p>\nShe said: &#8220;That really woke me up to something. Craig didn&#8217;t have to be my dad, but he was my father.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><!-- Pagination --><\/p>\n<p><!-- playbuzz --><br \/>\n<!-- end playbuzz--><\/p>\n<p><!-- \n\n<div data-cn-project=\"femalefirst\">\n    \n<\/div>\n\n --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><br \/>\n<!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><\/p>\n<p>    <!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><br \/>\n    <!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/celebrity\/alicia-keys-cut-dad-life-letter-aged-13-after-years-abandonment-1446490.html?f=rss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>25 June 2026 Alicia Keys cut her dad out of her life aged 13 in a heartbreaking letter after years of hurt by his abandonment. Singer-songwriter Alicia Keys The 45-year-old singer-songwriter let Craig Cook know how &#8220;furious&#8221; she was over his failings, including being absent for her birth in January 1981, and walking out on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":248232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1491,15792,15793],"class_list":{"0":"post-248231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-alicia-keys","9":"tag-craig-cook","10":"tag-terria-joseph-augello"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248231","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=248231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}