Yahoo Sports Phil Robertson's newfound daughter details their first meeting: 'Everybody had warned me that he's not very nurturing and be prepared'
Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson hosted his newly discovered daughter on his podcast.
Days after revealing that a DNA test determined he fathered a child during an extramarital affair in the ‘70s, he had his offspring, Phyllis, as a guest on Unashamed. They were joined by Phil’s longtime wife, Miss Kay, whom he admitted to cheating on before converting to Christianity the year Phyllis was conceived, as well as two of the four Robertson sons, Al and Jase, who helped their dad connect with their sister.
“Phyllis, all I can tell you is: I’m glad you found me,” Phil told her during the Blaze TV podcast. “I”m glad I found you... Welcome aboard.”
Sunday’s episode was a chance for Phyllis to tell her side of the story. She said she grew up with two siblings and never questioned her paternity. Married with two sons, one of her boys was gifted a DNA test three years ago and the genealogy results weren’t “matching up” with what she was told about her heritage, she recalled. That led Phyllis’s siblings to take DNA tests — and she followed. Her results showed that her two siblings were actually “my half-siblings.”
A deeper dive into her ancestry led her to believe Phil was her dad. She sent two letters in an attempt to reach Phil — one to the family’s church, another to the family Duck Commander business — and when she didn’t hear back, decided to hand-deliver a third to church. So, unbeknownst to the family, she watched Phil preach one Sunday. While she wanted to give him the letter directly, he wasn’t around after services, but Jase was and she gave him the letter.
Jase and Al soon put together the fact that this woman had written three letters to the family— and they sounded legitimate. After a Robertson cousin reached out to Phyllis and found her sincere, Al and Jase approached Phil and Kay — who married in 1966 — with the findings. Phil readily agreed to a DNA test and Phyllis was retested by the same company. They were a match and a meeting between them was initiated.
Phyllis said she had heard of Duck Dynasty the show, which ran from 2012 to 2017, when Phil’s anti-gay and racist comments led to the show being canceled. However, like her birth father, she’s religious and was on a mission at the height of the show’s popularity, so she never watched it. (“It was not on our radar,” she said.) She admitted she watched a few episodes after discovering Phil was her father but before meeting him, then decided against it to avoid “preconceived ideas” of her who the family was.
While she spoke with some of her brothers, also including Willie and Jep, prior to traveling to Louisiana to meet her new family, Phil said he wanted their first exchange “to be eyeball to eyeball.” As soon as they met, they took 45 minutes to speak privately.
“Everybody had warned me that he’s not very nurturing and be prepared,” Phyllis said. “I found you to be very nurturing. He grabbed me by the hands.”
“I put my hands on her face” Phil recalled and looked “in her eyes,” taking in the moment. He also admits he keeps calling her a “little girl” despite the fact that she’s 45.
Phil also marveled at the name Phyllis’s mother gave her.
“What’s interesting is that mother named you, not telling you who your father is, but named you Phyllis,” Phil said, adding, “Very weird.”
Jase quipped, “This is turning into a Lifetime movie here.”
Phyllis spoke about bonding with Kay, despite the fact that she was conceived when Phil cheated on Kay. Kay described herself as “just thrilled beyond belief” to have a stepdaughter — as she always wanted a girl. Phyllis said she calls Kay her “special mom.”
Phyllis also spoke about meeting the whole big Robertson family, admitting it was a little “overwhelming” but never “awkward.” Instead, “it was just puzzle pieces clicking into place.”
Kay and Phil went back and forth about his infidelity — something she was aware of at the time — which was a 10 year period before he found religion.
“Who stayed with you 10 years through all of that?” Kay said to her husband of the rocky period during which Phil was also drinking and using drugs.
“I’m glad you stayed with me,” he replied.
Phyllis said of her stepmother, “What a gracious, kind, godly woman you are.”
To his daughter, Phil said, ‘Girl, you’re the best thing that ever came out my past. Up until she showed up, I had nothing good to say about what happened before iI repented. I just walled it off — the life of sin — and left it... But I look up and here comes this girl out of the blur, out of the blue. I’m like: Whoa. If you never knew you had a daughter and 45 years’s she’s standing in front of you.”
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