Following their historic win on Season 21 of The Voice and daytime TV debut on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the sibling trio, Girl Named Tom, shared the disheartening news that their father, Chris Liechty, had lost his battle to cancer and passed away.
Unfortunately, they didn’t have long to celebrate their exciting win because after learning that their late father’s condition had worsened, they immediately left Los Angeles to spend time together as a family.
“Not even 24 hours after we won The Voice on that stage, we got to be in the hospital room with our Dad, all of our family together and that was very surreal just to share that moment with them,” Bekah shared.
Throughout their time on the show, the trio comprised of Josh, 24, Caleb, 26, and Bekah Liechty, 20, remained transparent about what was going on in their personal lives, including the difficult journey of seeing their father fight through terminal cancer.
“We are heartbroken with our father’s passing,” they wrote on social media. “It’s been 2 weeks now since his last breath, and we are taking time to feel his absence. Leaning on each other and letting tears fall, as our hearts break over and over. At the same time, we remember his joy. We feel his smile, and we let the laughter ring – how did we get so lucky to have him as our dad? A genuine, kind, wonderful man.”
Through their mourning and grief, they continued to perform their previously scheduled shows in their dad’s honor. They did however end up cancelling one show because they are currently experiencing a “pain like no other” and explained it would have been too difficult for them to get through.
“As we reflect on his life, we are finding even more purpose in what we do as Girl Named Tom. Even in his last days, our dad made sure to tell us to go on and play the shows we had coming up in Ohio. This tells you just how deeply he loved us and believed in us. That’s something we will carry with us. Everywhere we go, Dad will have a front row seat. When the magic happens, he’s there. When we break down in the green room, he’s there. We are not leaving him behind, we are taking him with us. It is an honor to carry on his legacy.”
While backstage of The Holland Theatre, ahead of the start to their three shows in Ohio following their father’s passing, they shared a video thanking their fan base for their “condolences, sympathy and kindness.”
“Yeah, we have three shows the weekend after our father passed. You may be wondering, ‘Why we would do that?’ We are too, sort of. But we went to get them out of the way, so we can really throw ourselves into processing his death and planning his memorial service, which is coming up in the next weekend. So, that’s really important to us,” Caleb explained.
These strong siblings shared in an earlier post that they are looking forward to getting back on the road this year, but until then, they will be taking the necessary time to cope with the loss of their late father, Chris Liechty.
