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Turns out Kerry Washington, the actress best known for playing Washington D.C. fixer Olivia Pope on Scandal, has a pretty shocking family secret of her own. In her new memoir Thicker Than Water, the usually very private Washington opens up about finding out as an adult that she was conceived with the use of a sperm donor.
Washington explains that after her seven-year (and Emmy winning) run on Scandal ended, she agreed to appear on Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s PBS series “Finding Your Roots,” in which celebrity guests find out about their ancestry. Early in the research phase of the show, Washington was asked to get DNA samples from her parents.
“When I said, ‘Spit in this tube,' they started freaking out,” Washington explained in an interview with the New York Times. “My mom was like, ‘I didn’t know that this was going to happen.'”
Meanwhile, shortly thereafter her father began having panic attacks. Washington thought he was anxious about an uncomfortable family truth that would be revealed during the show — though she assumed it was about a different relative. Out of respect to her parents, Washington told Gates she couldn't go through with doing the show. “I said: ‘I just don't think they're going to agree to it. My dad's really uncomfortable.'”
In an attempt to ease their concerns, Gates offered to talk with Washington's parents. Gates opened up to her months later about what they discussed. “They asked Skip [Gates' nickname], trying to sound, I think, as if it was a hypothetical: ‘Let's say there was a possibility that she wasn't our biological child. Would that come up in the testing?'” Gates explained that it indeed would.
Gates didn't explicitly tell Washington's parents how to handle the situation, but he recommended they reveal the information while everyone involved was still alive.
Finally, Kerry's parents Valerie and Earl Washington, revealed the secret on April 3, 2018 that they had kept from Kerry for over forty years — they used a sperm donor to conceive her.
Washington explained that the news was freeing in a way, since she had grappled with a feeling for some time of “not quite belonging.”
“I’ve always had this weird disconnect with my dad, but I thought that was my fault,” Washington admitted.
“I thought I wasn’t a kind enough person. But the idea that I was not his never occurred to me. It was just, why can’t I be better to him? Why can’t we be closer? What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with us?”
Washington continued, “I immediately felt guilty because I could see how much pain my parents were in, my dad in particular.”
She added, “I was birthed into a lie. I was playing a supporting character in my parents’ story.”
Washington elaborated on her complicated feelings about the revelation, explaining “It felt like I’d been wandering through a library my whole life, looking for a specific book about myself. My mom and dad were these librarians who said, ‘There’s a room we haven’t shown you.'”
Now, Kerry Washington has that specific book about herself she's been looking for — turns out she just had to write it herself.
