“There’s Some Daddy Issues”: Compelled to Consider Therapy, Gabrielle Union Was Once Given Stern ‘Reality Check’ by Her Father

The current wave of podcasts among various platforms has opened up a new way to look at the lives of celebrities. They share their intimate moments frequently and this leads to discourses in public. The recent wave of podcast-related content suggests that podcast is here to stay. It is here to stay because those with influence are using it as a mechanism to reach out to more people. 

Gabrielle Union appeared on the Skip Intro podcast, hosted by Krista Smith. Here she gave intimate details of her life and talked about her parents as well.

Gabrielle Union gets a reality check from her father

Union has spoken in glowing terms about family. Her mother Theresa always encouraged her to be an independent woman and to also have a world perspective. Since the veteran actor’s mother was a social worker, she brought ground realities and even took her to a gay parade when she was just eight years old. Therefore, Union has also adhered to an advocacy-related approach that plays a huge role in her persona. However, she was once wondering why her father never called her pretty or gave such comments about her appearance.

The Perfect Find star revealed that despite having money and fame, she wasn’t satisfied with where she was heading. She wanted “someone’s eye on me saying you got this because you are amazing and beautiful.” But nothing like this ever occurred in her life and someone asked her to consult a therapist. She was told that it is happening because “there’s some daddy issues”. Relating an incident, she poignantly expresses the impact of her childhood and family.

She states, “Here I am for all these years projecting that soul wound from my childhood onto every casting director, producer, writer. Like what! Maybe I need to get right with my father as an adult person. We just started having conversations.” While constructing the relationship, she asks a tough question to her father, inquiring, “Why did you never tell me I was pretty?” To this, her father had a razor-sharp reply, expressing, “Pretty don’t pay the bills.”

He continued, “You are black. I am black. Your mom is black. Your grandparents are black. We didn’t come from sh**. I came from the projects. Being pretty never helped anyone of us. So I thought I was encouraging you to be a great athlete, to be a great student, to be a great person.” This made Union say, “I was like, damn” in a low voice. 

Her father’s reply made her think a lot about ancestry and herself

Then the host asked her, “How do you come back from that?”

She replied, “I took I, hmm, I see how you got to this point. And that kinda got me through. It was like a bandaid and gusher. It got me through a little bit. I stayed in therapy. And then you start asking questions about your grandfathers. What were they going through to pour this into your parents, then they pour it into you? And the more I got into breaking ancestral bonds.”

She reflects upon herself and finds that she doesn’t care about what others think about her. Her father’s comments about her community trigger these questions. Because of the influence of her mother and the outlook of her father, she’s in support of her stepdaughter and Dwyane Wade‘s daughter Zaya Wade, who came out as trans in 2020. 

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It is the influence of her parents that she features in over 100 titles, both as a Hollywood star and as a TV star. 

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Learning about Union’s life is an enriching experience. With each page, she reveals a new hurt.