NEED TO KNOW
- An English man had an emotional reunion with his estranged sibling whom he hadn’t seen for 60 years on the U.K. TV show Long Lost Family
- Scott Shearer and his sister Tina were reintroduced on the show after being separated when Scott was aged 12; they spoke about the experience on U.K. talk show This Morning on Tuesday, Jan 20
- Scott also revealed on Long Lost Family that he discovered another of his sisters was in fact his mom when he was a child and that the people who he believed were his parents were in fact his grandparents
A man in England has been reunited with his estranged sister years after learning that another of his siblings was actually his mother, and the parents he grew up with were, in fact, his grandparents.
During an episode of the U.K. television show Long Lost Family, set to air on Thursday, Jan. 22, Scott Shearer searched for his older sister, Tina, with the help of the show after discovering at age 12 that his parents weren’t who he thought they were.
Speaking on the U.K. talk show This Morning on Tuesday, Jan. 20, ahead of the episode airing, Scott discussed the moment he discovered who his mom was.
“I had an altercation with one of my siblings and said ‘I’m gonna tell my dad,’ and they said, ‘He’s not your dad,'” Scott told hosts Ben Shephard, 51, and Cat Deeley, 49.
“It wasn’t done out of malice, just kids,” he said, adding that he “knew” deep down that something was wrong, but that the discovery was “still a shock.”
Scott recalled how he’d gone straight to who he thought was his dad at the time, before the situation was explained to him.
He told the hosts that discovering the truth about who his family members really were was “life-changing.”
Scott explained on the show how he’d grown up in a “normal, busy, hectic house, where you’re the youngest and everyone does their thing,” with five sisters and a couple of brothers.
Scott said on This Morning that his birth mother, whom he thought was his eldest sister, had “some issues” and lost her four children, with three kids placed for adoption, while he was raised by his grandparents, he shared.
Scott appeared on This Morning alongside his sister Tina after the pair were reunited on Long Lost Family after 60 years apart.
Scott said it was the “best feeling in the world” to have found his sister, admitting that it was his “last hope” to seek help from Long Lost Family‘s researchers.
“I was at the end of my tether,” Scott — who was seen breaking down in tears when he was told that the team had found Tina in a clip shared by This Morning — explained. “I just needed to know one way or another whether she was alive.”
Scott, who had been searching for Tina for years, continued, “I had actually prepared myself for her not being alive,” adding that he’d have found that “easier” than her not wanting contact with him.
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“It was a lot. Without wanting to be mean, I’d kind of written off the old family for various reasons,” Tina sadi of discovering her brother. “It was a big surprise. A big surprise! What a wonderful surprise,” Tina continued, insisting that she was “lucky” and had “grown up feeling loved anyway,” and calling her adoptive father, “amazing.”
Tina told the This Morning hosts, “When you suddenly know [that] there’s someone who has taken the time to look for you so hard, and [for] so long. It’s amazing.”
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