Patti Smith has opened about how she tracked down the true identity of her biological father in her new memoir.
Bread Of Angels was released earlier this week and has been over a decade in the works.
The memoir sees Smith “shed light on all aspects of her life – covering everything from her working-class upbringing in Philadelphia and South Jersey, all the way through to her withdrawal from the public eye”.
Smith revealed in the book that in a 2002 during a phone call, her mother said that she had “a story” for her “about genetics”. Smith tried to broach this subject the next time they met, when her mother was in a hospital bed after suffering a fall, but was met with a blank stare, according to the memoir.
We’re excited to reveal the cover for Patti Smith’s intimate new memoir, BREAD OF ANGELS. Available to pre-order now.
Bread of Angels takes us through her childhood and teenage years where the first glimmers of art and romance take hold.
Bread of Angels, out 4th November 2025. pic.twitter.com/mQrbW3lOBs
— Bloomsbury Books UK (@BloomsburyBooks) August 12, 2025
The singer-songwriter goes on to explain that in 2012, she took a DNA test along with her sister, Linda, to discover that they were actually half sisters and didn’t share Grant Smith as a father.
She wrote: “The results of our test put a great strain on my thought processes and for some time, I was unable to write.”
Thanks to her daughter, who Smith initially put up for adoption as a 20-year-old before growing close to years later, she was able to track down a photo of her father, Sidney. “I knew he was my father before I saw his face,” she wrote, revealing that he died as a young man, and his widow had also died before Smith discovered the information.
In a new interview with PEOPLE, Smith elaborated further. “I wasn’t sure what to do with this information, because I wanted the book I was writing to be very truthful, and all of a sudden, I had a parallel truth. And I felt if I didn’t write about it, then it felt like truth was compromised,” she said.
Smith also said of her decision to honour her father in the book: “As I was expressing gratitude to anyone else, I wanted to acknowledge him. He’s also someone that was barely remembered. He had no children. His surrounding family was small, and he’s not someone that would be remembered pretty much by anyone. So I wanted to rectify that.”
While she was “sad to not be Grant’s biological daughter” and “sad to only have my sister, Linda, as a half sister”, Smith concluded that “it doesn’t matter”, adding: “Our love for each other, my love for my father, eclipses blood, and my love for my sister eclipses blood.”
Elsewhere, Smith is currently celebrating the 50th anniversary of her debut ‘Horses’.
Last month, she was joined on stage by Johnny Depp to perform her classic single ‘People Have The Power’ at the London Palladium. The tour is currently in the US and you can purchase any remaining tickets here.
NME previously listed ‘Horses’ as the 12th greatest album of all time, writing: “A scrawny girl from New Jersey with a truckers’ accent, Patti Smith was a punk poet like no other.”
