Kirk Franklin on his greatest regrets, God's grace and criticism from Church: 'I'm older and I'm freer now'

By Leah MarieAnn Klett, Entertainment Editor Thursday, November 05, 2026

For more than three decades, Kirk Franklin has built a career on telling people that God loves them. But the superstar, whose music has earned him 20 Grammy Awards and helped shape gospel music, has spent much of his own life struggling to believe that love extends to him.

In an interview with The Christian Post, the “Stomp” singer shared how he grew up afraid of God, convinced that every mistake invited punishment. Music initially became his refuge, and then gradually morphed into something that, by his own admission, took precedence over the people he loved most.

“I didn't have a mother and father tell me they love me,” Franklin, who shares four children with his wife, Tammy, reflected. “The first thing [that] told me [it loved me] was music. … Music has been this interesting love in my life that, at times, I have not always known how to balance well with PTA meetings or with homework or with date nights or whatever it may be. 

“The hustle of that doesn't change just when you say 'I do,'” he said. “[I want to tell] those closest to me that I still know it hasn't been easy, and I want to love you enough to let you know that I see that.”

Now, at 56, Franklin is confronting his own failures, and God’s grace amid it all, on I Am What I Am,his latest album, released Oct. 30. The album’s opening track, “Free Me Tonight,” is a direct reckoning with his shortcomings, including the strains in his relationship with his son and the ways his career has sometimes displaced his family and his relationship with God.

“Sorry for collaborations and confessions of my soul on Oprah/ Trust in me was done/ But I wasn't through/ Then I disappointed You with the venom from my mouth/ Cursing out my son,” the lyrics read in part, and then later, “No condemnation/ You still love me whether I'm wrong or right/ Here's my life, please free me tonight.”

After three decades in the music industry, Franklin said he’s not interested in presenting himself as a man who has resolved those tensions, but wants to acknowledge them.

“I'm sorry that the failures that you read about [Old Testament King] David, you get to see in real time in Kirk,” he said. “The humanity of our biblical heroes, they don't seem to impact us when we are living with the humanity of our day-to-day biblical heroes.”

Franklin is no stranger to discussing hard topics in his songs; his 2005 song “Imagine Me,” for example, addresses childhood and family wounds. But what has changed, the artist told CP, is his relationship with himself.

“I'm older and I'm freer now,” he said, “and so I'm just more comfortable in my skin.”

That newfound freedom, Franklin said, has also required him to reconsider his previous understanding of what it means to live as a biblical Christian and the idea of Christian hedonism, which asserts that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” The artist reflected on how, for decades, the black church served as a source of dignity and leadership during the Civil Rights Movement and beyond. But gradually, he said, cultural expectations became conflated with Christian doctrine. 

"A lot of black church culture historically, sometimes, especially in the Pentecostal movements, it was very much a lot of what you can't do versus what you can do," Franklin said. "So freedom and liberation were not part of the conversation a lot for me. … It's almost like you feel guilty acknowledging happiness and freedom.”

"There is a psychological construct that if I'm not carrying a cross and not being broken, if I'm not being wounded by Christ, then I'm not really a Christian. But you don't always have to be on your face crawling and begging and carrying your cross and being persecuted for your faith. You can really watch a comedy show and laugh until you fall over. ... You can do that and be a Christian."

The tension between religious expectations and Christian liberty has also shaped Franklin's approach to criticism. Recently, the artist came under fire for his collaboration with mainstream rapper GloRilla on the song "This Time."

The collaboration sparked debate among some Christians, who questioned whether working with an artist whose music contains explicit content represents an opportunity to reach a broader audience or risks compromising the Gospel message.

Franklin stressed that he understands those concerns, and that Christians have a responsibility to exercise biblical discernment.

"I want people to know that their questions and their critique and their judgment is all welcomed," he said. "That is their biblical right to be able to do that. My challenge has always been ... the cruelty, the mean-spiritedness of it that can sometimes be presented.”

Franklin recalled a conversation with GloRilla after she encountered criticism over their collaboration. The rapper, he said, questioned why some Christians appeared unwilling to accept her participation in music that praises God.

"If a rock can praise God, Kirk, why can't I?" she asked him.

He pointed to Jesus' prayer for His disciples in the Gospel of John, noting that Christ did not ask for them to be removed from the world but instead prayed for their protection while they remained in it.

"That's what I ask people to do for me, to pray for me while God has me doing whatever it is I'm doing," Franklin said.

The debate is familiar territory for the gospel music veteran. His 1997 crossover hit "Stomp” famously drew criticism from some Christians who questioned whether secular musical styles belonged in gospel music.

Nearly three decades later, Franklin said he sees little evidence that the disagreement has changed, adding: "I think we're having the same conversation we had three decades ago.”

"You don't really try to fight it," he added. "You just allow people to rest where they are."

Elsewhere on I Am What I Am, Franklin, who has previously opened up about his struggles with anxiety and depression, addresses mental health in the song "It Gets Better," featuring rapper Toby Nwigwe.

"There are too many people in church that are dealing with these issues that it can no longer be overlooked," the artist said. "Some things you don't necessarily pray it all away. Some things need medicine. Some things need counseling. Some things need help and hope."

Christians, he emphasized, should never be made to feel that seeking medication or counseling reflects a spiritual immaturity.

"They shouldn't be shamed," he said. "They should be able to be in healthy spaces where their fragility and their faith find themselves at a safe crossroads within the body of faith."

Franklin added that his latest album's message ultimately returns to the grace of God, something he said he is only beginning to fully understand after spending much of his life believing that God's approval depended on his behavior.

"When you spend most of your life afraid of God, when you have been raised to believe that everything that you do, God's going to get you, and it's been a fear-based relationship, and then you come to places where you come to understand that you were wrong," he said.

"That fear was always supposed to be a respect and honor, not a literal, 'I am scared that every little thing I do, I'm going to get punished if I don't get right,'" he said. "When you come from a performance-based mentality, I've got to do everything right for God to like me, and for God to use me, and for God to bless me, and if something is going wrong, I must be doing something wrong. It's all performance-based."

After decades of both professional success and criticism, Franklin said his understanding of faithfulness has shifted away from his accomplishments and toward God's continued grace despite his imperfections.

"It is more of His faithfulness to me and the understanding of grace at levels that I never really fully comprehended before," he said. "I hope that can free someone else who was raised in those environments, because that's a hard place to build an intimate relationship when you're scared of somebody."

I Am What I Am is now available.