My late friend Dale was an author who wrote many words but said little. Gate Lepine is an author who wrote fewer words but said much about life, love, forgiveness, redemption and lots of music.
An Open Letter to Those Who Glorify Gate Lépine — And to Every Child Who Survived a Parent Like Him
I speak not out of bitterness, but out of clarity. Out of duty. Because when I saw the stories being shared—when I watched this man, my father, Gate Lépine, elevated on a public platform as if he were some kind of folk hero—I felt something crack open in me. Something raw, buried, and long unspoken.
I am the child of Gate Lépine.
I did not grow up in a tavern, laughing at his jokes.
I grew up in the wreckage.
And so I say this clearly: it is a moral failure to glorify this man.
To put him on a pedestal, to share stories drenched in alcohol and absent of consequence, to present him as a lovable rogue with charm and swagger—that is not only dishonest, it is dangerous. It erases the truth of what children like me endured. It gaslights the pain. It says to survivors: your suffering is less important than a good story.
Let me give you another story.
Imagine being a child waiting for your father to come home, only to watch him stumble in smelling of beer and regret—if he came at all. Imagine birthdays missed, promises broken, yelling through walls, and the steady drip of neglect that carves into your self-worth like acid on stone. Imagine learning, before you could even spell addiction, that you came second to the bottle.
Now imagine watching that man celebrated. His name hashtagged. His stories romanticized. As though his drinking were a cultural badge of honor instead of the wound that never closed.
That’s what you’re doing.
You’re not telling history. You’re rewriting it with a chisel made of delusion and a bottle of beer in hand.
You say Gate Lépine was magnetic. That he had style. That he made people laugh. Maybe he did. But a man’s public persona is not his legacy. His legacy is what he left behind. And what he left me was abandonment. Inconsistency. Shame. Not fatherhood. Not love. Not protection.
There are thousands like me.
Children of alcoholics.
Survivors of chaos, of emotional neglect, of trauma in quiet rooms.
We learned to be silent. To walk on eggshells. To laugh it off because everyone else did. And now, in adulthood, we’re watching the same cultural machine turn these men into legends instead of holding them accountable.
So here’s my legend:
He wasn’t a hero.
He was a man who failed his child.
And I’m done pretending that doesn’t matter.
I will not be quiet while your platform turns pain into poetry. I will not watch you elevate a man who spent his life sinking. I will not celebrate the myth while the truth dies in silence.
This letter is not just for Gate Lépine.
It is for every survivor who is being asked to smile through the glorification of their pain.
It is for those who had to parent themselves.
It is for those who grew up with love withheld and chaos normalized.
And it is for the platforms, publishers, storytellers, and so-called celebrants of “real life” who forget that behind every charming drunk is a child with empty hands and a heavy heart.
An Open Letter to Those Who Glorify Gate Lépine — And to Every Child Who Survived a Parent Like Him
I speak not out of bitterness, but out of clarity. Out of duty. Because when I saw the stories being shared—when I watched this man, my father, Gate Lépine, elevated on a public platform as if he were some kind of folk hero—I felt something crack open in me. Something raw, buried, and long unspoken.
I am the child of Gate Lépine.
I did not grow up in a tavern, laughing at his jokes.
I grew up in the wreckage.
And so I say this clearly: it is a moral failure to glorify this man.
To put him on a pedestal, to share stories drenched in alcohol and absent of consequence, to present him as a lovable rogue with charm and swagger—that is not only dishonest, it is dangerous. It erases the truth of what children like me endured. It gaslights the pain. It says to survivors: your suffering is less important than a good story.
Let me give you another story.
Imagine being a child waiting for your father to come home, only to watch him stumble in smelling of beer and regret—if he came at all. Imagine birthdays missed, promises broken, yelling through walls, and the steady drip of neglect that carves into your self-worth like acid on stone. Imagine learning, before you could even spell addiction, that you came second to the bottle.
Now imagine watching that man celebrated. His name hashtagged. His stories romanticized. As though his drinking were a cultural badge of honor instead of the wound that never closed.
That’s what you’re doing.
You’re not telling history. You’re rewriting it with a chisel made of delusion and a bottle of beer in hand.
You say Gate Lépine was magnetic. That he had style. That he made people laugh. Maybe he did. But a man’s public persona is not his legacy. His legacy is what he left behind. And what he left me was abandonment. Inconsistency. Shame. Not fatherhood. Not love. Not protection.
There are thousands like me.
Children of alcoholics.
Survivors of chaos, of emotional neglect, of trauma in quiet rooms.
We learned to be silent. To walk on eggshells. To laugh it off because everyone else did. And now, in adulthood, we’re watching the same cultural machine turn these men into legends instead of holding them accountable.
So here’s my legend:
He wasn’t a hero.
He was a man who failed his child.
And I’m done pretending that doesn’t matter.
I will not be quiet while your platform turns pain into poetry. I will not watch you elevate a man who spent his life sinking. I will not celebrate the myth while the truth dies in silence.
This letter is not just for Gate Lépine.
It is for every survivor who is being asked to smile through the glorification of their pain.
It is for those who had to parent themselves.
It is for those who grew up with love withheld and chaos normalized.
And it is for the platforms, publishers, storytellers, and so-called celebrants of “real life” who forget that behind every charming drunk is a child with empty hands and a heavy heart.
Elevate that.
Sincerely,
me
Child of an alcoholic. Survivor of the myth.