“I don’t run away from being a father, and she’s not the type of mom who would keep a child from a dad,” he said of his ex-girlfriend.
After almost one year since his adult son passed away, Rickey Smiley discovered that he is the father of 5-year-old twin girls.
While the announcement was made on the Smitty and Dee podcast last week, the 56-year-old said he received the news in January 2024 — almost a year to the day he lost his 32-year-old Brandon Smiley to a drug overdose.
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On the podcast, Smiley explained that he got a phone call from an ex-girlfriend who told him he was the father. The radio host said she had gone to court with one of her ex-boyfriends, where she learned the twins belonged to Smiley.
She and Smiley are still friends, he explained, so he has actually known his twin girls their whole lives.
“Me and her have joked about this,” he said on the podcast, referencing his ex. “I don’t run away from being a father, and she’s not the type of mom who would keep a child from a dad.”
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He also said he had no hard feelings about the news.
“When I tell you, that’s the first time I saw the sun again during that dark hour. The sun came back out,” he explained.
He shared the news with his family while holding a memorial dinner for Brandon, where he brought out his daughters.
“They lost it,” Smiley said of his family when they learned the news.
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Since discovering he is the father of the twin girls, he has come to see similarities between them and himself.
“One of them looks like me when I was 5, and the other one has my personality,” he explained on the podcast.
“At the end of the day, God is still good because it could have been worse, and that is a good perspective to live off of,” Smiley said. “And you gave me some twins, not to replace Brandon, but here you go! Here’s some joy.”
