When singer Rory Feek married his young daughter’s teacher in July, eight years after the tragic loss of his wife Joey Feek, it seemed the family had finally found a happy ending.
But just weeks later, Rory’s two adult daughters began telling a different story. In a new interview with PEOPLE, Heidi Feek reveals that she and her sister Hopie are considering legal action against their father, whom they claim has cut them off from contacting their youngest sister Indiana, 10, and put her in harm’s way — while Rory claims that the situation is a “family dispute” that’s been blown out of proportion.
“This is a devastating change for her, because we’ve been in her life since the day she was born,” says Heidi. “She’s even come to stay with us once a month for most of her life.”
Heidi Feek/Instagram
Rory, meanwhile, wrote in a blog post titled “love, dad” and shared on Saturday, Aug. 31 that his eldest daughter’s claims have “broken my heart,” and that Indiana “has never been more loved or better cared for than she is right now.”
Rory, 59, found success with second wife Joey as the duo Joey + Rory, and in 2014, they welcomed daughter Indiana “Indy” Boone. When Joey died of cancer in 2016 at age 40, Heidi, 37, and Hopie, 35, “developed a special maternal bond” with Indy, who has special needs, according to a GoFundMe page.
Over the years, Indy was featured regularly on Heidi’s Instagram, as they spent quality time together during visits to Heidi’s home in Alabama. When Hopie got married in 2018, Indy even served as a flower girl.
Heidi tells PEOPLE about three years ago, however, things changed. Suddenly, she says, they were no longer allowed to FaceTime with Indy, which was “how we stayed connected with her.” Still, Rory had recently claimed to have a switched to a flip phone, so she says the sisters “weren’t alarmed” at first.
Then, Heidi says that she and Hopie were no longer able to send pictures or videos to their younger sister.
“We supported his decision because we could still talk to her on the phone and she continued to visit us in Alabama,” says Heidi. “But things got concerning when Rory began canceling her visits to Alabama without rescheduling. Eventually, he said she wasn’t allowed to do overnight visits anymore, with no explanation. After that, we were only allowed to see her three times: her 10th birthday, one dinner, and the Homestead festival in June — when we saw her last. Now, he doesn’t let us talk to her on the phone and won’t respond to my texts.”
Heidi Feek/Instagram
Rory admitted in his blog post that Indy “absolutely” misses her sisters, and asks about them “all the time and would love to see them.”
He said that while his youngest is allowed to speak to Heidi and Hopie at any time, he confirmed she is no longer allowed to spend the night with them. The singer wrote that he stopped letting Indy sleep over “because they refused to respect my wishes when she was there.”
In the post, Rory said that he and Heidi’s differing worldviews is the crux of their disagreement, as Heidi and Hopie have different ideas of entertainment that they “want to expose [Indy] to.”
“But Indiana is my daughter, and I know what Joey would want, and I am standing firmly on not compromising the values and principles that are important to me to raise Indy with,” he wrote. “I tell her that hopefully soon, we’ll all be back together, and she’ll get to talk to and see them again. I do look forward to that day almost as much as Indy does.”
In recent months, Heidi says she’s grown increasingly concerned for Indy’s safety after an incident in which the child was allegedly left unsupervised.
“She wandered into traffic on Highway 431, terrified and lost, until a stranger found her and brought her home,” says Heidi. “Instead of addressing the danger she was in, my dad used this traumatic incident to create content that boosted his public image.”
In an article published in the monthly magazine Plain Values in May, Rory discusses the incident, writing that he quickly searched for Indy as soon as he realized she was missing and was relieved when she arrived back home in the passenger seat of a stranger’s car. “With tears in my eyes, I just held her tight, so thankful that she was okay,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Heidi has also expressed concerns over Indy being “left in the care of a group,” as she wrote in an Instagram post on Aug. 29.
Taste of Country, which first reported the story, identified the group as Homestead Heritage, which calls itself an “agrarian and craft-based intentional Christian community,” and interviewed multiple people with ties to the group.
Heidi Feek/Instagram
A lengthy report published in the Texas Observer in 2012 alleged years of abuse within the community, including the sexual assault of children. In a statement shared to its website, Homestead Heritage called the media reports “slanderous” and said some people were attempting to “exploit the public media as a tool to further their own agendas.”
“The false accusations even include the allegation that we tolerate and cover up sexual abuse of minors,” the statement said, adding, “In every case of abuse we’ve ever encountered, it was our ministry that exposed and reported the crime.”
Heidi says that Indy was left in the care of Homestead’s Montana branch while Rory and his new wife Rebecca went on their honeymoon.
In his blog post, Rory said that while on his honeymoon, Indy was left with two families who both have children she is close with, and that she had a nice time.
“I am not a perfect father, but I’m also not an idiot,” he wrote.
Rory also denied that Homestead was a “cult,” and admitted that while every organization has “bad apples,” he has only had positive experiences with the group.
Homestead did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
For Heidi, Rory’s actions echo trauma from her childhood. She says that she and Hopie were told that their mother did not want to be in their lives — and say they only learned recently that this was not the truth.
“When we started getting cut off from Indy, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this had all happened before,” she says. “That’s when I found my mom and called her. She had always wanted to be part of our lives and had been waiting my whole life to share her story with me. Now, I realize it’s my duty to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself.”
In his blog post, Rory denied Heidi’s telling of events.
“All this to say that I know that this has not been an easy life for Heidi and Hopie,” he wrote. “Most of the first fifteen years of their lives were without a mother and the one that they did get to finally have passed away young, just when they started to all become really close. And though they’ve recently reconnected with their birth mother, which I’m so glad to hear, it sounds like she has a whole other side of the story that she’s shared with them, saying that I kept them from being with her all those years. I hope someday they give me the opportunity to share my side of the twenty years that I raised them on my own, rather than just accuse me of something without any chance to respond.”
Heidi’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request from PEOPLE.
“This process is complex, emotionally draining and incredibly expensive. They wouldn’t be fighting this battle unless it was absolutely necessary to keep Indy safe,” the page says.
Per the GoFundMe, Heidi and Hopie are raising money to put toward legal fees “to secure Indy’s future,” as she “deserves to be in a safe and stable environment where her well-being is the top priority,” Heidi wrote on Instagram.
“[If I could see her] I would tell her what I told her at the Homestead Festival: ‘I love you, I miss you, and I’m doing everything I can to see you. I’m sorry if my actions get you in trouble, but I will never stop fighting for you,’” says Heidi. “She said okay and gave me a hug.”
Though it remains unclear if Heidi has yet to sue her father, and what for, in his post, Rory said that Child Protective Services showed up on his doorstep earlier this year saying there’d been a report that Indy “was being neglected, along with other accusations.”
“The situation had escalated to them taping the conversations they were having with her and leading her on so they could find ammunition to use against me, and it had become clear that Heidi wasn’t looking out for Indiana’s best interest—she was looking for revenge and a way to hurt me, no matter the cost, and I was no longer going to let Indiana be a part of it,” he wrote of his older daughters.
In response to Rory’s blog post, Heidi shared with PEOPLE an open letter to her father that claimed she and Hopie were happy to hear from him, as they’d been trying to reach him “for months.”
“Love is action, not words. We forgive you for your unkind words. You called us cowardly in your blog post for not facing you. We forgive you,” she wrote.
Elsewhere in the letter, she wrote that she felt “heartbroken” by Rory’s claims that Indy “has never been more cared for than she is right now.” Her husband Dillon also chimed in to say that when Indiana stayed with them in Alabama, he “never allowed her to look at screens” as a means of respecting Rory’s wishes, but did let her listen to Disney songs and Whitney Houston on his iPhone.
“Love is action. And we love our little sister Indiana more than anything in the world,” Heidi and Hopie wrote. “So we are taking action.”
Rory wrote that while Heidi’s accusations over the past few months have “broken my heart,” he did not initially respond out of love for his children, and a fear of hurting them.
“I know they are angry and frustrated and want justice for the wrongs they think have been done” he wrote. “But if I’ve learned anything in my nearly 60 years, it’s that it doesn’t work this way…. I will readily admit that I wasn’t a perfect father when they were young, but I tried to be a good one. And I continue every single day to do my very best for Indiana.”
