Who are Clinton Kane’s parents? The singer’s traumatic upbringing

Clinton Kane dropped out of medical school and flew to Athens for soul-searching. Kane ended up homeless, sleeping on park benches with his guitar. Throughout a life punctuated by struggle and loss, Kane’s love for music remained constant. Eventually, music became his salvation as he dealt with the deaths of his closest kin. 

Kane grew up traveling the world with his mother after his father abandoned the family

Clinton Kane was born on 26th November 1998 to a Norwegian mother and a Filipino father in Perth, Australia. 

Kane told philstar that though he loves the Philippines, he didn’t get to connect with his Filipino relatives, as his father abandoned the family when Kane was 14. “I didn’t really meet that side of my dad’s family,” Kane said. “I love the food, the people, I love everything about the Philippines.”

Growing up without a father wasn’t easy. “Happy Father’s day to my father who abandoned me,” Kane tweeted in June 2021. “Thank you for the trauma. It’s quite great.” Kane’s song Forget About Us addresses his relationship with his father. 

The singer was introduced to music at Hillsong Church, where his mother served as a pastor. Due to his mother’s occupation, the family moved around, spending short periods in Greece, Las Vegas, England, and Brunei. Therefore, Kane’s life had no permanence. 

Kane suffered an identity crisis stemming from his multiracial ethnicity, the absence of a father, the constant relocations, and the lack of permanent friends. He posted the following message on Instagram in June 2022:

“I grew up moving [from] country to country every 3 years, lived in 6 different countries, went to 20 different schools. Always being the new kid at school and never felt normal, or felt like I fit in anywhere. Ever since I was 10, I grew up asking myself every single day: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME.”

Kane’s strained relationship with his mother made things worse. He told Grammy that the songs I wish I could hate you for breaking me and calling it love, and Chicken Tendies are about his relationship with his mother. 

Kane stopped creating music after his mother, father, and brother died in 2021

Kane’s star was rising when his life took an unexpected, tragic turn: his mother, father, and brother died in 2021. The singer had promised an album release, but he couldn’t concentrate on music following such painful loss. 

“I thought I knew what growth and maturity meant,” Kane wrote in an open letter posted on Instagram in July 2022. “I thought I became an adult. I thought I was there, but I wasn’t. Nothing in life can slap you across the face and show you exactly where you stand as an adult harder than hospital bills, funerals through zoom, and salvaging whatever remained of a family that no longer did.”

“It all became very harsh reality of where I stood as a man and as a person. I disappeared and shut down. Who wouldn’t? I needed time. I needed to put work aside to discover who I was again.”

Kane wrote that he went on tour while hurting and postponed several album releases. “I broke down and couldn’t get back up,” he wrote. 

The singer wrote his first song – this is what anxiety feels like – during a panic attack. Writing and singing about the emotion helped calm Kane. Loss and anxiety are two different emotions. Regardless, Kane turned to music for solace, and it worked. 

Kane’s album Maybe Someday It’ll All Be Ok addresses his life struggles, from his identity struggles to the loss of his entire family. Something positive came out of Kane’s grief – he learned to embrace his identity. Kane told Grammy:

“At some point after that, I just realized, why am I going to be ashamed of who I am? Why am I ashamed of the way I look? Why am I ashamed of the way I sound? There’s a lot of people that love me, and I don’t need any more fucking validation.”

Kane bears his soul in his music; living a life of struggle taught him to open up about his emotions. He stated:

“I grew up very open about my feelings — it was okay for me to feel. I grew up with my mom, my dad wasn’t in the picture for most of my life. It was more than okay to be emotional. I am very emotional. It’s just been a lifestyle for me.”