Kristin Chenoweth Discovers Eerie Connection to Her Birth Dad

And it wasn’t just their shared connection to The Wizard of Oz and Wicked. Kristin learned Billy was also in other musicals, starring in productions of The King and I and A Connecticut Yankee, as well as being a member of a dance revue, a music club and his school choir.

“You know, I think of Billy as a rockabilly,” Kristin explained. “He was an incredible guitarist and also pianist, but I don't think of him as this music theater kid. But he was.”

“Well, we were a lot alike.” #KristinChenoweth discovers her biological father, Billy Eugene Etheridge, once played Oz in a Junior Players’ Guild production of #TheWizardofOz — the very story that would lead to making her Glinda. Stream the full episode of #FindingYourRoots now using the @PBS app or go to pbs.org/findingyourroots!

Upon learning about their ties, the 57-year-old expressed her regret that her biological father has since passed away, saying, “I wish he was alive so I could just be like, ‘Look at this.’”

Kristin had previously talked about Billy’s musical talent, acknowledging it’s likely that he’s who she inherited her own abilities from. 

“My birth father—major musician,” she told Larry King in 2019. “Guitarist. Pianist. Perfect pitch.”

But it wasn’t all from her father, as the Tony winner connected with her birth mother Lynn in 2012, sharing that she too was an artist and lover of music. And while Lynn died in 2023, she left a huge impression on Kristin.

"The 10-plus years I knew her were magic," she wrote in an Instagram tribute after Lynn’s death. "So many things became clear to me about myself when I met her and came to really know her. Those of us who knew her loved her light. Her love of music and all things artistic. An artist herself!”

"In her belly, I became fans of Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan, Doyle Bramhall, Jimi Hendrix, and, of course, Billy Ethridge, my bio dad," Kristin added. "The two of them gave me the innate artistic ability I have today."

Throughout her career, Kristin has been candid about her adoption and the gratitude she feels toward her adoptive parents.

"My dad always says, 'Man, did we win the lottery,’” she said on Today in 2022, “and I always say, 'No, I won the lottery.’”

And as she explained, the fact that she was adopted was “never a surprise” for her, sharing that her parents told her, “'The lady that had you in her belly could not take care of you the way she wanted to, and she loved you so much.’”