Joni's Lover Hopes to Meet Daughter

by Trish Tervitt
Toronto Sun
April 8, 1997

TORONTO PHOTOGRAPHER BIOLOGICAL DAD

He may not be the famous folk singer in the family, but Brad McMath would still like to meet his long-lost daughter.The Toronto photographer, 56, hasn't seen Joni Mitchell for "years and years," but wants to meet their 1960s love child, Kilauren Gibb.

Gibb, 32, was recently reunited with her famous mother after being put up for adoption 31 years ago. Mitchell and McMath met at an art school in Calgary in the '60s. The reunion has sparked media interest around the world, inviting calls to Gibb's friends and family from U.S. tabloid newspapers and television shows.

But all McMath wants to do is introduce his eight-year-old son, Morgan, to his half-sister Kilauren. And there's someone else he'd like to introduce to his son - Kilauren's three-year-old son, Marlin. "It was kind of a surprise to find out I'm a grandfather," McMath said. Even though he has yet to meet his daughter, he's thrilled about the mother-child reunion. "I'm really glad that she found her, I'd like to see her too." And he's pleased that Gibb lives in Toronto.

PEAK EXPERIENCE

Mitchell told the London Daily Express that finding her daughter is "the peak experience of my life." The newspaper quotes Gibb as saying she didn't care who her mother was, she just wanted to find her: "I wouldn't care if my mother was a crazy bag lady in the streets or the Queen of England." Mitchell said she talked "day and night" with her long-lost daughter when they were recently reunited in Los Angeles. "In the first few weeks every once in a while I'd just blurt out: `It's my kid!' We'd rush towards each other and hug and do some silly dance."

Gibb said she first spoke to Mitchell on the phone March 8. "As soon as we spoke just to hear her voice was the most calming thing in the world I guess it's the voice I heard in the womb." Gibb said meeting her mother was an experience of "undiluted joy." She hopes to live one day in the same house with her mom. Mitchell's manager, Sam Feldman in Vancouver, said Mitchell is busy trying to finish her latest album and that TV talk show hosts Larry King and Oprah Winfrey have contacted him trying to interview the star. "There's a media onslaught, Joni's trying to keep a dull roar on it," Feldman said yesterday.


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