When I started doing a lot of interviews in magazines and newspapers, invariably the question came up about where my father was. There was no easy answer. I never wanted to get into how difficult my early years had been or that my family had split up. It was painful, and it was also nobody’s business. Before the days of the internet, when reporters couldn’t easily research your family background, you could basically say anything and it would be reported as fact. I know this sounds strange, but at one point my mom suggested that I start telling reporters that my father had died. I think from her standpoint, it was kind of like a death in the family because their marriage had died. But it was also a terse answer that would end the questioning right in its tracks. So that’s what I started doing. When I see the newspaper clippings today, it’s very strange. I’m looking at one as I write this, an article that begins, “When he was five years old, Leif Garrett’s father died, leaving his mother with almost no money and two children to raise.” Or this quote from me: “When I was five, my father died. My mother, sister, and I had to adjust in a hurry. My mom had always wanted to be an actress, but her parents trained her in music instead.”
Of course this was pure propaganda. It was a story concocted to both get rid of the question and perhaps even build a little sympathy. But it always felt strange for me to say this. I knew it was a lie, but it began playing into this feeling I had that much of my life was becoming concocted from lies. I wasn’t really singing. My dad had died. A lot of things the teen magazines said about me weren’t true. Wherever I looked, I was either being misrepresented or I was misrepresenting myself. It made me sad to tell people my dad had died. Not just because I knew it wasn’t true, but because in my mind I knew our relationship was dead. So what was the difference? I never saw my father, and I wasn’t sure if I would ever see him again. I was doing so many interesting and exciting things, and I would’ve loved to have a dad watching over me, being proud and giving me advice. Instead, I was starting to feel like the man of the house in a strange way. My mom made me feel like that too. I think a couple of times she even said that to me. “You’re the man of the house now, Leif.” With me starting to bring in the money that I was, I was starting to support us. Problem was, I didn’t want to be the man of the house.