Yes, the legendary Canadian singers Leonard Cohen and Rufus Wainwright are related. And it's in the most beautiful way possible.
Wainwright and Cohen's daughter, Lorca, have a child together. Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen was born in 2011.
Now five years old, Viva is the late singer's only granddaughter.
"To be honest, it's so early in the process for me, and I never really intended to be a father," Wainwright told Spinner just after Viva was born. "It kind of came out of a period of extreme chaos and also emotional searching and it was a wonderful miracle that occurred in my life, and I'm very thankful to my friend Lorca [Leonard Cohen's daughter] for allowing that to happen."
Wainwright is married to Jörn Weisbrodt, artistic director of Toronto's Luminato Festival, who is Viva's "deputy dad."
Wainwright is very private about Viva, but his song "Montauk" is about her, reports The Daily Mail.
"One day you will come to Montauk
And see your dad playing the piano
And see your other dad wearing glasses
Hope that you will want to stay
For a while."
In an interview with the Daily Record, Wainwright explained how he and Lorca became parents. In part, this was the dying wish of his mother, the late folk legend, Kate McGarrigle.
“I’d known for years that Lorca had wanted to have a child and had mentioned me as having an opportunity to be the father. When my mother’s health started to fail, it coincided with Lorca’s desire to be a mother heightening, and she kind of popped the question.
I asked my mother what she thought of the idea and she had a sense that her days were numbered. She commanded me to do so, that it was an honour to be asked, and that I should go forward and procreate.
Whether it was down to my emotional state, or because I always do what my mother tells me, I did it. I wanted to but it was really through the chaos of her death that it occurred. My daughter Viva was born a year after my mother had passed away, so it didn’t quite work out that she could see her.”
Cohen was also grandfather to Cassius, who is the only child of his son, Adam. The three generations called themselves "The Cohen Boys."
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