Update on Jimmy McNichol and daughter Kellee Maize

Kellee

Singer/actor Jimmy McNichol recently appeared on the popular television comedy Decker:Unsealed, a spoof of action films on Adult Swim (A programming block of the U.S, cable network Cable Network that operates at night).  McNichol's daughter, Kellee Maize, a rapper and singer/songwriter, will make her first appearance on the show on June 25th.  Both farther and daughter are also releasing albums in the near future. Kellee's album will be released on the same day the show airs and is themed around her character on the show. 

Kellee Maize was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on January 18, 1980.  She was adopted as a baby by Chris and Terry Maize of New Berlin, a small town located in central Pennsylvania.  She graduated from Mifflinburg Area High School and later attended the University of Pittsburgh. During her time at the university, she began performing with live hip hop bands.  

Kellee found employment at the Pittsburgh City Paper, promoting events around the city..  In 2006, she started her own business, a Pittsburgh-based guerrilla marketing firm.  Maize went through some difficult times with her adopted motther's struggle with lung cancer and the sudden death of her addopted father.  She credits music with helping her deal with these problems.  

Although Kellee speaks highly of her adoptive parents, she felt a need to find her biological parents. In 2015, she was interviewed by Michelle Gifford of Beauty Revivied magazine.  She told Gifford that Chris and Terry Maize were "incredible."  She stated that she "would never have wanted anything else but to be raised by them."  "However, she added," there was definitely always a part of me that seemed to be missing."  She didn't know anyone else who was adopted and she felt "lonely and confused at times."

When Kellee was about 22, she joined an adoption support group for the first time in her life..Her birth mother, however, rejected her attempts at connecting and she eventually decided to seek out her birth father.  In 2012, she discovered that she is the daughter of 1970s teen idol Jimmy McNichol from a relationship he had when he was 18 years old  with a woman who was working at the front desk of the hotel where he was staying after a huge ABC event.

McNichol, now 55, is the younger brother of Family star Kristy McNichol.  According to a June 16, 2016 article in Pittsburgh Magazine by Cristina Rouvalis, Kellee phoned Jimmy in Colorado and the two agreed to take check swabs for a DNA test.  Ten days later, the results confirmed that McNichol was indeed her biological father.  He immediately sent of a text to his daughter reading, "Welcome to the family."   It turns out that Jimmy McNichol is also a grandfather since Kellee is married and the mother of a son. Kellee has met Kristy McNichol, who is her aunt.  She has also met Jimmy's wife, Renee, and their children.  

According to her webpage, Kellee Maize is inspired by metaphysical and new age teachings.  She is an environmental activist and women's rights advocate.  In 2007, she released her first album, Age of Feminism.  Since then, she has released five other albums.  Her sixth album, The Remixes, came out in 2015.

- Joanne