Australian pop star Guy Sebastian traces his family history back to India and Sri Lanka in the latest episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, which aired on SBS on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Sebastian was born in Malaysia and migrated to Australia when he was six. In his episode of the show, which helps famous faces research their ancestry, Sebastian is determined to get to the bottom of his mother Nellie\u2019s ethnicity. Born in India, but blue-eyed and fair-skinned, there has always been confusion in the family about his mother\u2019s bloodline.<\/p>\n
His quest for answers takes him to one emotional stop in India: His grandmother\u2019s grave, where he\u2019s joined by his mother\u2019s sister and husband \u2013 and aunt and uncle he\u2019s never actually met before. <\/p>\n
The trio share a hug in the graveyard before Guy dials in his mother to witness the family meeting. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a big moment for me. Being here in India and learning about my family, I feel really connected to it in a way I never have before. It\u2019s been a very spiritual experience, and I\u2019ve learned so much about where I come from. I can\u2019t wait to take that back and share it with my family,\u201d Sebastian says.<\/p>\n
The Australian Idol winner\u2019s voyage also takes him to Sri Lanka, to reconnect with his father Ivan\u2019s Tamil roots.<\/p>\n
While in Sri Lanka, he video calls home for an emotional conversation where he asks his father a question he realises he\u2019s never thought to ask before: Why exactly Guy is named after his grandfather.<\/p>\n
Guy\u2019s father explains that he was very close to his father, who worked for the St John\u2019s Ambulance. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was always very encouraging, always had the nicest things to say,\u201d Ivan recalls.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad was always encouraging me to study, to further our education. Whilst I was studying geology in my second year, Dad met with an accident and he passed away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ivan was attending school away from the family, and \u201cbecause I was undertaking my exams at the time, the family did not disclose [his death].\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was about three months after he passed away that I found out. It was quite devastating \u2013 but they were nervous that it might destroy my studies and stop me from completing my education, which is what dad wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s pretty rough,\u201d Guy says. \u201cI realised, Dad, I\u2019ve never asked you \u2013 why did you name me after your dad?\u201d
\u201cBecause I was so proud of my dad, of his achievements and his contribution to the community at large,\u201d Ivan explains, choking back tears. \u201cI wanted you to have his name \u2013 I was proud of him and I\u2019m proud of you too.\u201d <\/p>\n
Who Do You Think You Are? airs 7:30pm Tuesdays on SBS and is available to stream on SBS On Demand. Upcoming subjects this season include Chrissie Swan, Curtis Stone and Rosie Batty. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian pop star Guy Sebastian traces his family history back to India and Sri Lanka in the latest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-681277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}