Chynna Phillips spent a lot of time "weeping" before her wedding because of a “really intense” conversation she had with her late dad, The Mamas & the Papas singer John Phillips. Chynna, 56, married Billy Baldwin in 1995, but she just opened up about the conversation with her dad in a video on her "California Preachin'" YouTube channel.
"We talked about stuff that was pretty earth-shattering and a lot had come to the surface and my father was having a ton of feelings and, of course, that made me have a ton of feelings and I remember I was up all night just weeping and numb," she admitted.
She acknowledged that her dad's decision to have a tough conversation with her right before her wedding day might be perceived as "horrible," but she assured viewers that he didn't have bad intentions.
"It was more like it just evolved in our conversation the night before I got married," she explained. Though the conversation “blindsided” her and left her on “autopilot," she also said, "it was one of the most priceless conversations I’d ever had with my father."
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"It was definitely, bar none, the most honest conversation I’d had with my father, and the most raw and real conversation I’d ever had with my dad," she continued.
The singer didn't say exactly what her dad talked to her about, but she felt that he probably had to talk to her “for his own conscience.”
"I don’t think it was any coincidence that he was walking me down the aisle with my mother, and I think he felt like he needed to come clean before he walked me down the aisle for his own conscience,” she said.
The "earth-shattering" things her dad talked to her about left her struggling to sleep. “I remember I didn’t sleep much the night before, and I had a lot of adrenaline running through my system as well, because of information,” she revealed.
Because of the information that was shared with her, she "would weep and then … would go stoic again and then … would weep and then … would go stoic again."
In December 2023, Chynna and her half-sister, Mackenzie Phillips, who wrote about having an incestuous relationship she allegedly had with her late father, spoke about their complicated relationships with their dad.
Mackenzie spoke about how some people have criticized her for forgiving her father, who died in 2001.
"I get a lot of criticism and a lot of trolling online for having forgiveness in my heart. Forgiveness, because forgiving is for me, not for the other person. And forgiving doesn't mean I cosign or agree with what I'm forgiving him for," she explained in a YouTube video.
Chynna also acknowledged that their dad had talent but also had a "dark" side.
"He's an amazing songwriter and, you know I loved his laugh, and yet there was this whole other side to dad that was, I mean, kind of, like a monster. He was so dark, and you just didn't know who you were going to get. It was very unpredictable," she explained in the video.
Mackenzie wrote about the incest allegations in her 2009 memoir, High on Arrival. Some members of her family have insisted that the allegations aren't true, but Chynna was supportive of Mackenzie and said she learned about the "incestuous relationship" in 1997.
After the release of Mackenzie's memoir, Chynna told Us Weekly that she was shocked and sad when Mackenzie told her about the relationship. Still, she "knew it was true. I mean, who in their right mind would make such a claim if it wasn't true?"
"Was he actually raping her? I don't know. Do I believe that they had an incestuous relationship and that it went on for 10 years? Yes," Chynna said to Us Weekly at the time.
