Rascal Flatts’ Jay Demarcus Reveals What He Said in Letter to Daughter He Gave up for Adoption

Rascal Flatts’ Jay DeMarcus is continuing to open up about the daughter he gave up for adoption. The singer, who shared the story, along with many others, in his recently-released memoir Shotgun Angels: My Story of Broken Roads and Unshakeable Hope, revealed he wrote his daughter a letter, which her parents were going to give her on her 14th birthday.

“The most important thing to tell her was why we made the decision,” DeMarcus told All Access. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be in her life, and that I didn’t love her, and that I wasn’t abandoning her. I wanted her to know that, because my greatest fear at that point in time was to have this little girl grow up and think that her mom and dad didn’t love her or want to be a part of her life.”

“We were faced with an impossible decision and situation,” he continued. “We were smart enough to know that we should not get married just for that reason, because we weren’t in love. We made the best decision we could possibly make at that point in time, and I wanted to be able to explain that to her as best I could in a one-page letter, which is impossible to do.”

The Ohio native knew it would be easier to not share that detail of his past, but felt it was too integral to his life story to leave out.

“For me, I felt like I had to tell that part of my life, because that became such a catalyst for all the other events that unfolded to get me here,” DeMarcus said. “It was a hard decision to make to tell that story because I knew that there would probably be people that thought that I was putting it in there just to capitalize on something, and it wasn’t. It’s pain that I’ve carried with me from the moment that it happened, the day that it happened.

“It’s one of those situations that life brings at you that’s completely unexpected,” he added, “and if you’ve never dealt with it, you don’t know how to deal with it.”

DeMarcus hopes to meet her someday, but is leaving that decision entirely up to her and her family.

“I want it to be her decision,” said DeMarcus. “I didn’t write this to try and draw her out. I wrote this to try to present an honest take on how those events shaped me and changed my life. If she wants a relationship someday, I’m obviously very open to it. But I want she and her family to make that decision.”

Shotgun Angels: My Story of Broken Roads and Unshakeable Hope, is currently available for purchase on Amazon.

Photo Credit:Getty images/Rick Diamond