Henry Louis Gates Jr. is in the business of finding family secrets.
Gates, who has been the host of the PBS series “Finding Your Roots” since it premiered in 2012, has helped many celebrities uncover what’s hiding in their family tree. Sometimes, stars aren’t prepared for what Gates and his team finds out, as was the case with Kerry Washington.
The “Scandal” star published her memoir “Thicker Than Water” in 2023 that was sparked, in large part, by what she discovered when she told her parents she was interested in going on “Finding Your Roots.” Her parents’ strong reaction against it ultimately led to her finding out her dad was not her biological father, and that her parents had used a sperm donor to conceive her.
Gates spoke to TODAY.com about “Finding Your Roots,” which premiered its 11th season earlier this month, and how his part in Washington’s revelation came to be — despite her never appearing on the show.
Before Washington found out about her family secret, Gates recalls running into Washington outside of a hotel in Beverly Hills.
“She ran up to me and she said, ‘Dr. Gates, I need your help,’” he says. When Gates asked if Washington was going to come on “Finding Your Roots,” she responded, “My parents won’t let me.”
At the time, Washington thought a family scandal was the obstacle — “some aunt had a baby out of wedlock or something,” Gates recalls her saying. She asked Gates to call her parents and sort it out.
From there, Gates says he joined a Zoom call with Washington’s parents. “Her father said, ‘I have a question. If I’m not her father, would that be revealed to a DNA test?’ And I went, ‘Woah.’ Holy mackerel. I said, ‘Yes it would,’” Gates says, his face mimicking the shock he felt in that moment.
At the time, Gates says Washington still did not know the truth of her parentage. Her parents asked Gates what they recommended they do.
“I said, Mr, and Mrs. Washington, you should hang up and call your daughter, set up a meeting and tell her she was artificially inseminated,” Gates recounts.
During a 2023 TODAY appearance, Washington recalled the meeting with her parents in which they broke the news.
“It was shocking, but there was also something strangely familiar,” she recalled. “There was like a confirmation.”
She said the revelation came as a “call to adventure.”
“It felt like, ‘Well, this is a really exciting opportunity for me to learn more about who I am and who I want to be and to also make sense of my life,’” she said.
Washington went on to unpack the experience in her memoir, which she called “healing.”
“I got to look back on my life and say, ‘Oh with this new information, I kind of understand it all now. But I wanted to write my way through that,” she continued.
Gates said that Washington asked him to help her find out the identity of the sperm donor. It took years, but genealogist CeCe Moore eventually found a match. Ultimately, Washington declined to come on the show, but she was able to move forward with Moore’s finding.
This isn’t the first time “Finding Your Roots” has raised identity-shaking revelations. Gates says he has an ethics protocol he keeps in a file on his desk, which he consults when he calls guests with the news.
“It goes like this. Point number one, we have found something in our research that is forever going to change your understanding of your family. Would you like to know or not?” he says. “Theoretically, there are people who would say no, but it hasn’t happened to me.”
Season 11 of “Finding Your Roots,” which premiered Jan. 7, features guests like Melanie Lynskey, Lea Salonga, Sharon Stone, Chrissy Teigen and married couple Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard. Additionally, Gates’ family story is featured in the season finale, as he uncovers a long-standing mystery of his own.
Gates says that being able to change lives is “a great honor.”
“If you look at our show, the power is the narrative arc. We take the facts of your family, of your genealogy, and we bring it to life,” he says.
