Last week, Alicia Keys shared a letter she wrote to her father, Craig Cook, when she was just 13. She read the emotional piece loud for her followers on Instagram. In the caption of the post, the New York born-songstress stated that she had been waiting for the right moment to share the touching personal letter. Alicia Keys’ father, Cook, was a flight attendant during those days, but he had split with Keys’ mother when she was just two years old.
“In the early part of my teens, I wrote this letter to my father, Craig. I wanted nothing to do with him,” Alicia Keys stated in an extended caption to her post. “My words came from a place of vulnerability and longing. At the time, it hurt so much to experience what felt like empty promises. I swore I didn’t care, but I did, and it affected me deeply. I finally had enough and wrote those words.”\
In the clip that she shared, the singer read out from her letter of more than 25 years ago. “It saddens me that most of my heart is bitter towards you,” the letter had begun. “It’s only that little part that feels sad that’s not bitter. All I want is for you is to mind your own business. I don’t want the phone calls. I don’t want the letters. I don’t want the fake acts you pull to try and make me think you care. I don’t want anything.”
At this point, the Girl On Fire singer stopped reading the letter and explained that her father never showed up for promised visits when she was a child. And as she grew tired of the situation, she had to put pen to papers in July 1994.
She further explained that her father never replied to the letter but admitted he did speak to her and said he had no desire to be pushed out of her life.
“Craig says he had no intention of allowing me to push him off the ledge of our relationship,” Alicia Keys explained on the clip. “He says he attempted to stay connected from the back row of my life…. Even after I mailed those divorce papers to Craig, some part of me must have hoped he’d fight to stay in my life. But at 14 [she actually was 13 in July 1994], I felt sure I never wanted to hear from him again.”
Following the revelation, some of her followers encouraged her by saying they had similar issues and praised her for opening up, including her husband, Swizz Beatz.
“Wow, this made me cry, Alicia!” a follower wrote. “This is the BIGGEST STRUGGLE IN MY LIFE. It’s a relationship I’m not ready to heal, but in my mind, I want to.”
“I’m proud of you, my love,” commented her husband, Swizz Beatz. “You guys came a longgggggg way.”
Alicia Keys went ahead to reveal that she decides to start building a relationship with Craig Cook in 2006 at the time her mother’s health deteriorated. He explained that she had to decide to ease herself off the bitter feelings she had grown with for years.
“My father and I are fine now,” Alicia told Britain’s You Magazine in 2012. “I would say in the process of growing up, you realize you’ve been holding on to anger. I was angry then and am sure I had the right to be angry, but if you hold on to all this anger, the only person you’re hurting is you.”
“The process started when my [paternal] grandmother became ill,” she added. “You realize what’s important when you see a person you love dearly, and you’re not going to have them for long. It was important to her. And I saw [my father’s] love for her. I realized he wasn’t an evil person, so I said, ‘Can we start from this point on? Can we be friends? I can start to understand you, and you can start to understand me.”
