Rory Feek's 3 Daughters: All About Heidi, Hopie and Indiana (and How One Found Out He Isn't Her Biological Father)

Mar. 15, 2025

Rory Feek with daughters, Indiana, Heidi and Hopie on vacation in Hawaii in February 2020.Photo: Courtesy Rory Feek

Rory Feekraised three girls as a single father.

The country singer and his ex-wife Tamara Gilmer welcomed their first child, Heidi, in 1986. Their second daughter, Hopie, soon followed in 1988. However, in 2025, she found out from a genetic test thatRory is not her biological father.

After Gilmer and Rory split in 1992, the latter raised the girls on his own before marrying his late wife, Joey, in 2002. Together, the two welcomed their daughter, Indiana, in February 2014 — just two years before Joeydied of metastatic cervical cancerin 2016.

Now, Rory’s elder daughters are grown, while Indiana continues to live with her father and his new wife, Indiana’s schoolteacher Rebecca, within Homestead Heritage, a faith-based community that Heidi has accused of endangering her sister. The organization denied the allegations,suing Heidi for defamationin October 2024.

Heidi Feek, Hopie Feek and Indiana Feek.Heidi Feek/Instagram

Heidi Feek/Instagram

“These articles and the social media postings they are based on contain multiple falsehoods that misrepresent our church family and the values we uphold,” Homestead spokesperson Dan Lancaster said in a statement.

On Feb. 11, the family’s turmoil continued when Hopie said she was “disappoint[ed]” with Rory for sharing private details of her mother’s life in a blog post he wrote in response to finding out she was not his biological child.

“I shared my story because I couldn’t keep the secret all to myself anymore," she wrote onInstagramdays after his blog post sharing his reaction. “I’m really not a public person, but because Rory is, my private life becomes content for his fans (who are often unkind online).”

From their accusations concerning Indiana’s safety to finding out Rory isn’t Hopie’s biological father, here’s everything to know about Rory Feek’s daughters, Heidi, Hopie and Indiana.

Heidi Feek, 38

Rory Feek’s daughters Heidi and Indiana smile in a photo together in March 2022.Heidi Feek/ Instagram

Heidi Feek/ Instagram

Rory and his ex-wife Gilmer welcomed their first daughter together, Heidi, on Oct. 3, 1986, and she was raised in Nashville, Tenn. Heidi followed in her father’s footsteps with a career in music, singing backup for Joey + Rory as a child before joining her now-husband Dillon Hodges on tour in 2015.

Now, the duo makes music together under the name “firekid,” and evenwon a Daytime Emmyin June 2024 for their original song that was featured in PBS’Reconnecting Roots.

Shortly after, Heidi brought her issues with her father to the public eye when she claimed that Rory was keeping her and Hopie away from their youngest sister, Indiana, who previously frequently visited Heidi and Hodges at their home in Alabama.

“This is a devastating change for her, because we’ve been in her life since the day she was born,” Heidi told PEOPLE in August 2024. “She’s even come to stay with us once a month for most of her life.”

The eldest Feek daughter shared that she and Hopie had a maternal bond with Indiana, who has Down syndrome, and planned to take legal action against their father, who they alleged had drastically decreased communication between them and Indiana since 2021.

While the sisters previously frequently FaceTimed her, Heidi said Rory claimed that he switched to a flip phone so face-to-face calls were no longer possible, and they couldn’t send photos to one another. Eventually, Heidi claimed, Rory stopped letting Indiana stay at her home — and wouldn’t let them see the little girl at all.

Heidi Feek in Florence, Alabama, in April 2024.Heidi Feek/Instagram

“Eventually, he said she wasn’t allowed to do overnight visits anymore, with no explanation,” Heidi told PEOPLE. “After that, we were only allowed to see her three times: her 10th birthday, one dinner, and the Homestead festival in June — when we saw her last. Now, he doesn’t let us talk to her on the phone and won’t respond to my texts.”

Rory responded in anopen letter on his blog, writing that his eldest daughter’s claims have “broken my heart,” and that Indiana “has never been more loved or better cared for than she is right now.”

He further explained that he stopped letting Indiana sleep over “because they refused to respect my wishes when she was there.”

Heidi added that the incident made her question her past, as she grew up being told that her mother had left her and Hopie. To that end, she reached out to Gilmer, and the two reconnected.

“She had always wanted to be part of our lives and had been waiting my whole life to share her story with me,” Heidi told PEOPLE. “Now, I realize it’s my duty to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself.”

Rory denied Heidi’s claim in his blog post, writing that he didn’t keep the girls from their mother.

“It sounds like she has a whole other side of the story that she’s shared with them, saying that I kept them from being with her all those years,” he wrote. “I hope someday they give me the opportunity to share my side of the twenty years that I raised them on my own, rather than just accuse me of something without any chance to respond.”

A month later, Homestead Heritage sued Heidi for defamation. She responded in a jointstatementwith Hodges that she believes the lawsuit “is an attempt to scare us into submission.”

Heidi alsoresponded to her dad’s claimsand blog posts in her own post, telling him that she forgave him for the mistakes she claimed he made in her childhood but would still be moving forward with her legal actions to protect Indiana.

Hopie Feek, 36

Rory Feek with his daughter Hopie in 2019.Rory Feek/ Facebook

Rory Feek/ Facebook

Rory and Gilmer welcomed their daughter, Sarah Hope, whom they affectionately call Hopie, on Sept. 13, 1988, in Memphis, Tenn.

“We called her Hopie from the moment she took her first breath, and the name has been perfect for her,” Rory wrote in aFacebooktribute to her on her 31st birthday in 2019. “Filled with unwavering hope and joy and a childlike sense of naive wonder, she is exactly the opposite in many ways of her older sister, who spends most of her days deep in thought, analyzing life to the ‘nth degree.”

He added, “Heidi has always been the most like me, and Hopie is the most how I’d like to be.”

On Oct. 27, 2018,Hopie married her wife, Wendy, at the Feek family farm in Pottsville, Tenn., where Rory walked his daughter down the aisle, and Indiana served as flower girl.

Over five years later, Hopie shared that she discovered through a recent 23andMe test that her biological father was actually a man she referred to as B.C., adding that she’s “gotten really close” to him over the last six months.

Hopie Feek with her wife Wendy and sister Heidi after their proposal in 2017 in Florence, Alabama.Heidi Feek/Instagram

A few days later, on Feb. 11, Rory shared the news himself in a blog post, detailing how Hopie let him know days earlier — but he had already suspected that she was not biologically his daughter after the timing of when she was born didn’t align with when he returned from a six month deployment with the Marines.

“I told Hopie that I guess a part of me knew. But more than that. I told her I didn’t care. That this news and this blood test doesn’t change anything for me. ‘I love you as my daughter and I always will,’ ” he wrote.

However, Hopie shared onInstagramthe following day that she was disappointed in her father’s response because she had asked him to “be kind and not shame my mom,” and felt that, instead, he “shared her private history in his blog.”

She added that she regretted coming out to her father as bisexual in 2014, sharing thatshe felt he “used” her storyto sell his 2018 memoir.

“I regret that. When his book came out, he had massive support and I had the opposite,” she wrote. “More hate from his fans. The things he wrote in that chapter still hurt.”

Indiana Feek, 12

Rory Feek and his daughter Indiana in March 2022.Rory Feek/ Facebook

Rory married his late wife Joey in 2002, and the pair welcomed their first child together, Indiana, or Indy, on Feb. 17, 2014. However, just two years later, Joey died, leaving Rory to raise Indiana.

“My experience raising Indiana isno different than raising Heidi and Hopie,” Rory told PEOPLE in 2020 of raising a daughter with special needs. “Really, it’s the same. And the thing is, she doesn’t suspect that there’s anything different about her. She has no thought in the world.”

While Joey had initially planned on homeschooling Indiana, Rory had to alter the plan and insteadbuilt a schoolhouse on his Tennessee farmwith the $100,000 he received from fans following Joey’s death.

“We needed to come up with another plan since Joey wasn’t going to be able to homeschool Indy,” he said, explaining that the school was “an amazing opportunity” that has catered to his youngest daughter’s educational needs.

Rory Feek and daughter Indiana Feek attend a screening for “Patsy & Loretta” on October 09, 2019 in Franklin, Tennessee.Jason Kempin/Getty

Jason Kempin/Getty

Indiana also has a close relationship with her sisters, who frequently post her on their Instagram. However, she hasn’t been able to see them due to the disagreements between Heidi and Hopie and their father.

Rory has expressed that Indiana misses them, writing in his September 2024 blog post that she asks after Hopie and Heidi “all the time and would love to see them.”

“Indiana is my daughter, and I know what Joey would want, and I am standing firmly on not compromising the values and principles that are important to me to raise Indy with,” he wrote. “I tell her that hopefully soon, we’ll all be back together, and she’ll get to talk to and see them again. I do look forward to that day almost as much as Indy does.”

source: people.com