Rory Feek is responding to accusations from his older daughters about their concern over the well-being of their younger sister.
On Saturday (Aug. 31), the 59-year-old country star wrote a lengthy blog post, titled “love, dad,” in which he responded to accusations from his daughters Heidi, 37, and Hopie, 35, that their younger sister, Indiana, 10, is living in unsafe conditions with him and his new wife. Heidi and Hopie are from Feek’s first marriage to Tamara Gilmer. He had Indiana with his second wife, Joey Feek.
“I will do my best to try to respond to a few of the things that are being said, with hopes that something in what I write might be helpful,” Rory began his 3,500-word post.
In late August, Heidi and Hopie shared on Instagram that they were threatening to take legal action against Rory regarding their little sister Indiana “Indy” Boone, who has Down syndrome.
“We are pursuing legal action because we no longer believe Indiana is safe under our father’s care, and her well-being remains our top priority,” reads Heidi’s Aug. 23 post on Instagram.
Billboard had not been able to locate a filed lawsuit at press time.
Following Rory’s marriage to Indiana’s teacher Rebecca on July 14 in Greycliff, Mont., Heidi shared posts on Instagram indicating that the 10-year-old had been left with unfamiliar family members while their father and his new wife were on their honeymoon in the Treasure State, Taste of Country reports.
Joey died at 40 in 2016 after a battle with cervical cancer. The duo performed under the name Joey + Rory. She was first diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2014, and he revealed the following year that they had decided to end treatment.
In another Instagram post on Aug. 29, Heidi reportedly expressed concerns that Indiana was being “left in the care of a group” identified as Montana branch of the Homestead Heritage, which calls itself an “agrarian- and craft-based intentional Christian community.” A Texas Observer report in 2012 alleged abuse within the Waco area-based group, including the sexual assault of children, which the Homestead Heritage has denied.
In his blog post on Saturday, Rory wrote that while on his honeymoon in Greycliff, Indiana was left with two families that both had children close to his daughter’s age, and that she “had a ball” during the experience.
“I am not a perfect father, but I’m also not an idiot,” the singer wrote.
He also noted that Homestead Heritage is not a cult. “Those folks are just living in a way that other people don’t like or understand, and it’s a whole lot easier to call something a cult and dismiss it than it is to look deeper into and actually find out what it is they are doing and why they’re doing it,” the musician wrote.
Rory admitted, however, that every community, church and family has its fair share of “bad apples,” but that “we should be a culture of redeeming people, not of canceling them.”
Elsewhere in his blog post, Rory explained that Indiana is no longer allowed to visit Heidi and Hopie in Alabama, but that she is allowed to speak to her older siblings on the phone.
“Every couple of months, I used to let Indiana spend a night or two with her big sisters in Alabama, but about a year ago, I stopped allowing that,” he wrote. “Mostly because they refused to respect my wishes when she was there.”
Rory goes on to explain that he is a conservative Christian and his daughters believe something “completely different,” and that they were exposing Indiana to movies and music that he didn’t approve of.
“Indiana is my daughter, and I know what Joey would want, and I am standing firmly on not compromising the values and principles that are important to me to raise Indy with,” the artist wrote. “I tell her that hopefully soon, we’ll all be back together, and she’ll get to talk to and see them again. I do look forward to that day almost as much as Indy does.”
On Saturday, Heidi responded to her father’s blog post on Instagram, writing that she and Hopie had been trying to reach him for months but he had not responded to their offline attempts. She also shared a screenshot of unanswered text messages and audio of a phone conversation where they allegedly begged him to attend family therapy.
Read more
