Kt tunstall
When KT Tunstall was approached by the Long Lost Family team to become the show’s first celebrity searcher, she had her reservations, she tells Gemma Dunn
When KT Tunstall signed up to Long Lost Family, she understandably had her doubts. The Suddenly I See hitmaker, who had always known she was adopted, grew up in St Andrews, Scotland, in a loving family. But it was surprisingly - only after watching the Mike Leigh classic Secrets & Lies that she began to think about finding her birth parents.
“I was watching this amazing cast portray that experience,” she says of the 1996 film. “I met Brenda Blethyn not long after finding my birth mother and told her about it; she was crying and said, ‘I can’t believe you did it.’
“Watching someone go through this experience in a real or fictional way can have a profound effect on you,” she recalls.
“[But] it’s a big decision to make because you basically step through a doorway that you can’t go back through again,” she warns. “You can’t make it unhappen, and you’ve got to take the risk of finding out whatever and being OK with it.”
Fortunately for KT, 44, her own search for her birth mother, Carol Ann, paid off. And having successfully tracked her down in 1998, the pair have since formed a good relationship. however, the whereabouts of her biological father remained a mystery.
That was until Long Lost Family - the Bafta-winning ITV series - stepped in.
now in its ninth season, the tearjerker - presented by Davina Mccall and nicky Campbell - has notably traced hundreds of missing relatives since its inception in 2011, with the help of trained intermediaries,
DNA experts and investigators from all over the world.
KT, however, was its first celebrity searcher. And her decision to participate in an episode of the show’s latest sevenpart run was not taken lightly.
“I needed to have a think about whether I want to do it on camera,” she reasons. “I haven’t really watched telly since about the year 2000, so I wasn’t aware of these kinds of real-life programmes.
“And obviously the worry is ‘What’s the agenda here?”’ she admits. “Are they wanting some sort of salacious, crazy, Jeremy Kyle style nightmare scenario that is going to get everyone watching?
“But it became apparent very quickly that this was a very emotionally mature, very experienced team, who literally just want to find family members and put them together in the safest and most positive way.
“After I realised that, it was like, ‘Yeah, no brainer!”’ she says. “Finding my birth mum was hard on my own, whereas this is a team of researchers with tons of experience and access to stuff that I’ll never have.
“Also there’s amazing psychological and emotional support and I wish I’d had that the first time around,” she follows. “And when it came to the public side of it, it was like, ‘Well, there’s lots of adopted people who aren’t sure about whether they want to do this, and hopefully by doing this, [it will help].’
“Apart from anything else it’s a very emotional, human story, and those things are positive to share.”
So how much did she know about her birth father to begin with?
“I probably had a bit more information than you usually would - I knew his name, I knew that he was northern Irish, I knew that he ended up living in northern Scotland,” she notes.
“And then, when I met my biological mother, she told me a bit more about him as well; she’s always said that he’s a good person, with a good heart...
“She told me straight off the bat that he wanted to get married and keep me and be my father, but she was just not able to do that,” she adds. “So, she was really pleased that I was going to find out about him; I think she thought I would have had a chance to meet him.”
Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be, however, as KT soon discovers (off camera) that John died in 2002.
“he died quite young - but he’d gone on to have children with a new partner very soon after I was born,” she relays. “My two sisters [Siobhan and Lesleyanne] were growing up about 35 miles away from me!”
They’ve since met: “We look like each other, which is absolutely bonkers for all of us,” KT says excitedly.
“I can’t imagine what it’s like for them, because I knew there was always a possibility that I had half-siblings in the world but they had no idea,” she muses, the siblings having been a fan of the singer - buying her album and seeing her play at festivals - unknowingly. Does she feel a sense of closure? “It just feels like there’s been a missing corner of my painting, of who I am,” she responds. “I’ve got four parents, and three of them, I’ve known what they look like, I’ve known who they are,” she explains. “And then that fourth corner was basically a complete blank.”
“But I wasn’t walking around feeling lost...” KT is quick to add, the Brit Award winner confirming that her adoptive parents have always been “enormously supportive”.
“had I gone to my grave not knowing, I wouldn’t have suffered because of that,” she states. “But I definitely feel that I will now have an enriched life, certainly, from knowing my sisters.”
She hopes that sharing her story will also enable other adoptees to take a leap of faith.
“It takes courage to ask the question, because you don’t know what you’re going to get,” she realises. “You could get a disturbing story that you’ve got to live with for the rest of your life, I was extremely lucky.”
now KT, who has just finished touring the UK, europe and the USA, is about to start the UK summer festival circuit with Isle of Wight in the bag and Glastonbury this weekend.
“We’ve got loads of festivals - and I’m also actually going to Japan and China as well!” reveals the singer-songwriter, who kicked off her music career with debut album Eye To The Telescope in 2004.
As for new music: “I don’t write very much when I’m on tour,” she says. “It’s kind of all-consuming, but I’m making a new record this autumn and it’s the final in a trilogy of records about soul, body and mind.
“I’ve done the soul one and the body one,” she finishes. “And the mind one will be out next year hopefully!”
Watch KT Tunstall on Long Lost Family on ITV on Monday July 1