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Over 45 years after putting a baby girl up for adoption, Rod Stewart is attempting to build a relationship with the daughter he never knew.
"She was put up for adoption when I was 17 or 18, I think," the rocker, now 65, said on The Joy Behar Show, of his daughter Sarah Streeter. "I was absolutely stone broke... and so she was put up for adoption."
Streeter, who lives in England, found out in the 1980s that Stewart was her dad, but since then has only had limited contact with the rocker. But things are changing, and the estranged father and daughter are now bonding. Streeter lost her adoptive parents in recent years, which, Stewart says, was what pushed him to nurture the relationship with his daughter.
"Since her mum and dad have died, we've tried to come together and be close together, and it's working out pretty well," Stewart says. "I never felt like I was her dad, because I didn’t take her to school, change her nappies, there was no paternal thing there, but I'm trying."
Streeter is the eldest of Stewart's seven children, and No. 8 is on the way, as the musician's wife, Penny Lancaster, is pregnant.
The 47-year-old Streeter tells the U.K. Daily Mail that, though her relationship with her birth father may have been strained over the past 20 years, she's embracing her new family.
"At the moment it's all baby steps, but whatever issues were there have all been forgotten, for both of us," she says. "It's all water under the bridge now. It's nerve-racking, too, but just as much so for him as it is for me. There's no anger there. I never was angry about what happened really, just sad. But now I'm older I see things differently and realize that it has been as difficult for him over the years as it has been for me."
Streeter says she's ready to move forward. "Now we're at the start of a new chapter, and that's wonderful."
What do you think about Rod Stewart reconnecting with his daughter? Chime in below!
