Chynna Phillipsis reflecting on a difficult conversation she had with herlate father John Phillipson the eve of her 1995 wedding toBilly Baldwin.
In a video shared to her YouTube channelCalifornia Preachin’last week, Phillips, 56, revealed that John “blindsided” her with a “really intense” conversation the night before he was set to walk her down the aisle.
CChynna Phillips and John Phillips at the 1991 Grammy Awards in New York City.Steve Allen/Liaison
Steve Allen/Liaison
Phillips did not reveal the specifics of her difficult conversation with The Mamas & The Papas singer John, who died of heart failure in 2001 at age 65. But the two had a complicated relationship over the years, and she said in the video that he’d missed her entire childhood “because he was high.” Phillips has alsopublicly supported her half-sister Mackenzie Phillips, who wrote in her 2009 memoir that she and John had an on-and-off sexual relationship for 10 years.
Though Phillips said she knows it sounds “horrible” that her dad would choose the night before his daughter’s wedding to have a chat like that, she felt his intentions were good, and that he perhaps felt a need to “come clean” before walking her down the aisle in a church, “for his own conscience.”
The Wilson Phillips singer and Baldwin tied the knot the next day, and are now parents to daughters Jameson, 23, and Brooke, 19, and son Vance, 22.
“I remember I didn’t sleep much the night before, and I had a lot of adrenaline running through my system as well, because of information,” she said. “But at the same time, it was one of the most priceless conversations I’ve ever had with my father, and it was definitely, bar none, the most honest conversation I’d had with my father, and the most raw and real conversation I’d ever had with my dad.”
Chynna Phillips and Billy Baldwin at their wedding in the Hamptons in September 1995.John Roca/NY Daily News Archive via Getty
John Roca/NY Daily News Archive via Getty
She continued: “There was a real contrast there, because on one hand it was so beautiful and precious to me, but on the other hand it was so terrifying and disturbing… I think he felt shame and guilt and I think he felt like he needed to unload.”
Phillips admitted that finding room in her heart to forgive “takes time,” and called it a “process.”
She previously welcomed sister Mackenzie onto her channel as a guest in December, where the two discussed how they had, in fact, found forgiveness.
“Obviously, he’s an amazing songwriter and, you know I loved his laugh, and yet there was this whole other side to Dad that was, I mean, kind of, like a monster,” Chynna told Mackenzie. “He was so dark, and you just didn’t know who you were going to get. It was very unpredictable.”
source: people.com
