The School of Greatness
Kerry Washington Opens Up: Mental Health Struggles, Her Spiritual Connection & The Secret That Changed EVERYTHING
07 May 2025
Chapter 1: What is Kerry Washington's family secret?
Now, do you feel like before that truth was revealed that you were able to fully relax into your relationship with your parents? Even though they were loving to you and supported you and encouraged you? No. You don't feel like you were able to? No.
And again, I've always had a really loving relationship with my parents. I have incredible parents and they have given me so many tools, consciously and unconsciously. They've been a tremendous part of the story of me getting to where I am today. I'm not where I am despite my parents. I'm mostly where I am because of my parents.
And then there is a little bit of despite those dynamics, I wound up here. Right. So I do, I think I've, I had a really good relationship with my parents, but I have a great relationship with my parents now because of the gift of truth that they've offered us.
You always felt like something was off. Yeah.
I felt like something was missing.
Did you ever ask them like, Hey guys, what's going on? Like in your twenties and thirties, like, is there something off? Are you guys not sharing something with me?
What's funny is that there were these kind of smaller revelations throughout my childhood. Like I talk about in the book, how my dad was kind of involved in this investigation. And so when I learned about that, I was like, oh, this is what it was, right?
They were hiding this.
Yes, there were these, I think, the culture of my family was kind of hide the truth to look good. And like, we should do whatever it takes to like look good in the world. So as I would learn these smaller truths along the way, I kept waiting to feel the revelatory feeling that I had when I got the big truth.
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Chapter 2: How did therapy help Kerry Washington?
And they were trying to protect you and they loved you and they wanted to keep you guys together. Yeah. It was part of their journey. Yeah. He must have let go of a huge weight.
Yeah.
Like, does he seem lighter and younger, just like emotionally?
You know, it's so funny when I think about it. It was a very important lesson for me and also how to metabolize fear and how to run toward the things that we think will destroy us. Because initially, he wouldn't even take a genetic test. He was like, I don't want to know. I don't want to know. I don't want anybody else to know. He literally said to me, if you do this, it will kill me. Oh, my gosh.
He didn't want me to write a book. He was like, nobody should know. Why do we have to talk about this? Nobody needs to talk about this. Nobody needs to know. Then I think about moments in my book tour where he's like standing in an auditorium getting a standing ovation. Oh, my gosh. celebrating his presence as a dad.
And the fact that despite the fact that I wasn't genetically his, that he has been such a force in my life and has loved me so fiercely. And, you know, he got that in like several cities, standing ovations, cheering him on and celebrating him. And on national television, people saying like, what an amazing thing you did. And even the fact that
that my parents made this choice to use a sperm donor in the seventies when nobody was doing that, that in itself is a testament of how much they wanted me. Right? So that journey for my dad to see him go from being somebody who he thought would lose all respect and credibility and masculinity and identity to see him be so celebrated and held up. It's a really important lesson, right?
Like the thing,
100%.
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