In June 2011 Kelly Rowland's father reached out to her via a British tabloid begging for a reunion after abandoning Kelly and her mom more than twenty years ago [click here if you missed that]. After the initial shock wore off Kelly agreed to a Christmas meeting with her long lost dad [click here if you missed that], but a recent interview reveals the reunion never happened...
From The London Evening Standard
Whoever knew that one third of Destiny's Child, a girl who comes from a state where, according to her, dinner is 'either smother-fried or soaked in gravy', would end up being a girl about Mayfair and Marylebone? When it comes to the Queen, according to Kelly they're practically neighbours. 'I've actually been living just down the street from her,' she says. 'When I moved into the 'hood, I was hoping I would get to see her walking the dawgs. But I guess she has people to do that for her. She's the Queen, so she got it like dat, right?'
Yes, Kelly, Her Majesty has indeed got it like that. I can't help smiling every time Kelly talks hip-hop to me. It's ghetto-cute and deliciously out of kilter with the mullioned windows of the St Pancras Renaissance hotel where we meet. She tells me my tie is 'dope', informs me that I am wearing the waistband of my trousers at just the correct height, not all low-slung like in the USA. British men I discover, in general, are 'fly'.
Kelly was born in 1981 in Atlanta, Georgia. Her full name is Kelendria Trene ('Tren-nay') Rowland. 'I always figured that my momma gave me a name with all those syllables because I put her through so much pain,' says Kelly. When she was seven, her mother Doris Rowland Garrison left her violent, alcoholic father Christopher Lovett and relocated to Houston, Texas, with little Kelly in tow. Despite recent attempts by her father for reconciliation, she hasn't spoken to him since.
