Hannah Hart broke down in tears as she explained how her father had chosen his religion over her. (Hannah Hart/ YouTube)
Lesbian YouTuber Hannah Hart has made a video explaining why her father has chosen not to attend her wedding.
Hart is set to marry her fiancée Ella Mielniczenko in Spring 2020, and decided to make the video so she could be “comfortable posting all the happy wedding content again”, and because she has “nothing to be ashamed of”.
She said she had always been scared to publicly discuss her relationship with her father because he is a Jehovah’s Witness, and has repeatedly chosen the anti-LGBT+ religious group over his daughter.
She said: “So my dad isn’t coming to my wedding because he’s a Jehovah’s Witness. The witnesses aren’t like a church.
“They’re not even like a Christian denomination. They are more like the kind of organisation that consumes your entire life and controls all your relationships.”
Hannah Hart broke down in tears explaining that her father had chosen not to attend her wedding.
Hannah Hart went on to explain how destructive she feels the Jehovah’s Witnesses are, and added: “You don’t protect families by keeping secrets. And I’ve been keeping secret my opinion of the Jehovah’s Witnesses out of fear of losing my relationship with my father, out of fear of becoming what they call an apostate which is someone…”
She was unable to finish the sentence as she began to break down in tears. Hart said her opinion of the religion was “a point that I have to address before I can talk about the experience of what it feels like when your parent continually rejects you, or doesn’t choose you.”
She continued: “I’m really surprised that I’m sad that my dad’s not coming to my wedding. I’m really, really taken aback. I can’t believe I care.
“Why do I care? It shouldn’t matter. Of course, he’s not going to the wedding. I keep repeating this to myself… the witnesses have always been more important than me. So why am I surprised?”
The YouTuber said that she had decided to make the video, titled ‘My Dad Isn’t Coming to Our Wedding’, because she wanted to be honest, and help others who may be in a similar situation.
She said: “I just need to say this so that I don’t internalise it. It doesn’t fester and me because these kind of wounds if they’re not tended to, they can grow up into something bad.
“And I am hurting about this a lot right now. It is really devastating to me. It is really hurt me… I want to tell anyone who’s watching who has a parent that doesn’t choose you, I want you to know that you are still worthy of so much.”