When singer Rory Feek married his younger daughter’s instructor in July, eight years after the tragic lack of his spouse Joey Feek, it appeared the household had lastly discovered a cheerful ending.
However simply weeks later, Rory’s two grownup daughters started telling a special story. In a brand new interview with PEOPLE, Heidi Feek reveals that she and her sister Hopie are contemplating authorized motion towards their father, whom they declare has minimize them off from contacting their youngest sister Indiana, 10, and put her in hurt’s manner — whereas Rory claims that the scenario is a “household dispute” that is been blown out of proportion.
“This can be a devastating change for her, as a result of we’ve been in her life because the day she was born,” says Heidi. “She’s even come to stick with us as soon as a month for many of her life.”
Heidi Feek/Instagram
Rory, in the meantime, wrote in a blog post titled “love, dad” and shared on Saturday, Aug. 31 that his eldest daughter’s claims have “damaged my coronary heart,” and that Indiana “has by no means been extra liked or higher cared for than she is correct now.”
Rory, 59, discovered success with second spouse Joey because the duo Joey + Rory, and in 2014, they welcomed daughter Indiana “Indy” Boone. When Joey died of most cancers in 2016 at age 40, Heidi, 37, and Hopie, 35, “developed a particular maternal bond” with Indy, who has particular wants, in accordance with a GoFundMe page.
Through the years, Indy was featured usually on Heidi’s Instagram, as they spent high quality time collectively throughout visits to Heidi’s residence in Alabama. When Hopie received married in 2018, Indy even served as a flower woman.
Heidi tells PEOPLE about three years in the past, nonetheless, issues modified. Out of the blue, she says, they had been now not allowed to FaceTime with Indy, which was “how we stayed linked together with her.” Nonetheless, Rory had not too long ago claimed to have a switched to a flip telephone, so she says the sisters “weren’t alarmed” at first.
Then, Heidi says that she and Hopie had been now not capable of ship footage or movies to their youthful sister.
“We supported his determination as a result of we may nonetheless speak to her on the telephone and he or she continued to go to us in Alabama,” says Heidi. “However issues received regarding when Rory started canceling her visits to Alabama with out rescheduling. Finally, he mentioned she wasn’t allowed to do in a single day visits anymore, with no clarification. After that, we had been solely allowed to see her 3 times: her tenth birthday, one dinner, and the Homestead pageant in June — after we noticed her final. Now, he doesn’t allow us to speak to her on the telephone and gained’t reply to my texts.”
Heidi Feek/Instagram
Rory admitted in his weblog submit that Indy “completely” misses her sisters, and asks about them “on a regular basis and would like to see them.”
He mentioned that whereas his youngest is allowed to talk to Heidi and Hopie at any time, he confirmed she is now not allowed to spend the night time with them. The singer wrote that he stopped letting Indy sleep over “as a result of they refused to respect my needs when she was there.”
Within the submit, Rory mentioned that he and Heidi’s differing worldviews is the crux of their disagreement, as Heidi and Hopie have completely different concepts of leisure that they “wish to expose [Indy] to.”
“However Indiana is my daughter, and I do know what Joey would need, and I’m standing firmly on not compromising the values and ideas which might be vital to me to lift Indy with,” he wrote. “I inform her that hopefully quickly, we’ll all be again collectively, and he or she’ll get to speak to and see them once more. I do stay up for that day nearly as a lot as Indy does.”
In current months, Heidi says she’s grown more and more involved for Indy’s security after an incident wherein the kid was allegedly left unsupervised.
“She wandered into site visitors on Freeway 431, terrified and misplaced, till a stranger discovered her and introduced her residence,” says Heidi. “As a substitute of addressing the hazard she was in, my dad used this traumatic incident to create content material that boosted his public picture.”
In an article printed within the month-to-month journal Plain Values in Might, Rory discusses the incident, writing that he rapidly looked for Indy as quickly as he realized she was lacking and was relieved when she arrived again residence within the passenger seat of a stranger’s automobile. “With tears in my eyes, I simply held her tight, so grateful that she was okay,” he wrote.
In the meantime, Heidi has additionally expressed considerations over Indy being “left within the care of a gaggle,” as she wrote in an Instagram submit on Aug. 29.
Taste of Country, which first reported the story, recognized the group as Homestead Heritage, which calls itself an “agrarian and craft-based intentional Christian group,” and interviewed a number of individuals with ties to the group.
Heidi Feek/Instagram
A prolonged report printed within the Texas Observer in 2012 alleged years of abuse throughout the group, together with the sexual assault of kids. In a statement shared to its web site, Homestead Heritage known as the media studies “slanderous” and mentioned some individuals had been trying to “exploit the general public media as a instrument to additional their very own agendas.”
“The false accusations even embrace the allegation that we tolerate and canopy up sexual abuse of minors,” the assertion mentioned, including, “In each case of abuse we’ve ever encountered, it was our ministry that uncovered and reported the crime.”
Heidi says that Indy was left within the care of Homestead’s Montana department whereas Rory and his new spouse Rebecca went on their honeymoon.
In his weblog submit, Rory mentioned that whereas on his honeymoon, Indy was left with two households who each have youngsters she is shut with, and that she had a pleasant time.
“I’m not an ideal father, however I am additionally not an fool,” he wrote.
Rory additionally denied that Homestead was a “cult,” and admitted that whereas each group has “unhealthy apples,” he has solely had optimistic experiences with the group.
Homestead didn’t instantly reply to PEOPLE’s request for remark.
For Heidi, Rory’s actions echo trauma from her childhood. She says that she and Hopie had been informed that their mom didn’t wish to be of their lives — and say they solely realized not too long ago that this was not the reality.
“After we began getting minimize off from Indy, I couldn’t shake the sensation that this had all occurred earlier than,” she says. “That’s when I discovered my mother and known as her. She had at all times wished to be a part of our lives and had been ready my entire life to share her story with me. Now, I understand it’s my obligation to verify historical past doesn’t repeat itself.”
In his weblog submit, Rory denied Heidi’s telling of occasions.
“All this to say that I do know that this has not been a straightforward life for Heidi and Hopie,” he wrote. “Many of the first fifteen years of their lives had been and not using a mom and the one which they did get to lastly have handed away younger, simply once they began to all grow to be actually shut. And although they’ve not too long ago reconnected with their beginning mom, which I’m so glad to listen to, it feels like she has a complete different facet of the story that she’s shared with them, saying that I stored them from being together with her all these years. I hope sometime they offer me the chance to share my facet of the twenty years that I raised them by myself, moderately than simply accuse me of one thing with none likelihood to reply.”
Heidi’s lawyer didn’t instantly reply to a request from PEOPLE.
“This course of is advanced, emotionally draining and extremely costly. They wouldn’t be combating this battle until it was completely essential to hold Indy secure,” the web page says.
Per the GoFundMe, Heidi and Hopie are elevating cash to place towards authorized charges “to safe Indy’s future,” as she “deserves to be in a secure and steady atmosphere the place her well-being is the highest precedence,” Heidi wrote on Instagram.
“[If I could see her] I’d inform her what I informed her on the Homestead Pageant: ‘I like you, I miss you, and I’m doing every part I can to see you. I’m sorry if my actions get you in bother, however I’ll by no means cease combating for you,’” says Heidi. “She mentioned okay and gave me a hug.”
Although it stays unclear if Heidi has but to sue her father, and what for, in his submit, Rory mentioned that Youngster Protecting Providers confirmed up on his doorstep earlier this 12 months saying there’d been a report that Indy “was being uncared for, together with different accusations.”
“The scenario had escalated to them taping the conversations they had been having together with her and main her on so they might discover ammunition to make use of towards me, and it had grow to be clear that Heidi wasn’t searching for Indiana’s finest curiosity—she was searching for revenge and a method to damage me, regardless of the associated fee, and I used to be now not going to let Indiana be part of it,” he wrote of his older daughters.
In response to Rory’s weblog submit, Heidi shared with PEOPLE an open letter to her father that claimed she and Hopie had been blissful to listen to from him, as they’d been attempting to achieve him “for months.”
“Love is motion, not phrases. We forgive you on your unkind phrases. You known as us cowardly in your weblog submit for not dealing with you. We forgive you,” she wrote.
Elsewhere within the letter, she wrote that she felt “heartbroken” by Rory’s claims that Indy “has by no means been extra cared for than she is correct now.” Her husband Dillon additionally chimed in to say that when Indiana stayed with them in Alabama, he “by no means allowed her to take a look at screens” as a way of respecting Rory’s needs, however did let her take heed to Disney songs and Whitney Houston on his iPhone.
“Love is motion. And we love our little sister Indiana greater than something on the planet,” Heidi and Hopie wrote. “So we’re taking motion.”
Rory wrote that whereas Heidi’s accusations over the previous few months have “damaged my coronary heart,” he didn’t initially reply out of affection for his youngsters, and a worry of injuring them.
“I do know they’re indignant and annoyed and need justice for the wrongs they suppose have been carried out” he wrote. “But when I’ve realized something in my almost 60 years, it’s that it doesn’t work this fashion…. I’ll readily admit that I wasn’t an ideal father once they had been younger, however I attempted to be a superb one. And I proceed each single day to do my easiest for Indiana.”
