We all love a good father-daughter dance—but the one that recently went viral is a bit controversial.
28-year-old Justine Tuckett recently posted a video of she and her father doing a popular TikTok dance, which sounds sweet. But the first caption in the video while she begins her dance reads, “My dad has been in prison for 22 years,” followed by “I got to pick him up this week.”
We then see her dad, Bill Lorance, join her in the dance. The last time Bill got to dance with his daughter was when she was five, which is a large reason the video gained more than 45 million views.
The dance was actually Bill’s idea—not Justine’s. Though he didn’t know much about TikTok (naturally, after being behind bars for so long), he did see a few news reports about social media trends and had always wanted to make videos (like TikTok). He was so thrilled when Justine wanted to do it with him.
Bill went to prison for killing his stepfather in 1999. Justine was 5 years old when it happened, and became one of the 2.7 million children in the US to have a parent who is incarcerated, according to the National Institute of Corrections.
Of course, there were the people who saw the dance, knowing what he was in for, and wasn’t able to see past the crime. “There are people who think I should have stayed in prison for the rest of my life,” Bill said. “They’re just inflamed that ‘he gets to get out and dance with his daughter, and his victim’s daughter will never dance with him.’”
However, most of the comments on the video were people with an incarcerated loved one and wondering how to be able to have a good relationship with them when they got out.
“Words can not express the emotions and feelings I’ve had this week. Picking up my father from prison after 22 years was amazing,” Justine wrote on her video. “When I was younger every time I blew out my birthday candle, I would wish that he would get out of prison…until I was old enough to realize that he wasn’t going to be wished back to me.” . “My Dad put in the work everyday, he is unrecognizable from the person he use to be before prison,” she added. “Some resilient people CAN be reformed. Some people DESERVE to re-enter society again. Some WILL embrace their children, grandchildren, and family one again. Someone like my Dad.”
The two practiced for just 20 minutes and the final result was posted! “I wanted to upstage her,” Bill said. “I suck. I’m not even dancing, I looked like a robot that needs grease.”
Check it out below!
Justine and Bill are already planning another version of the dance, and Bill is happy to be able to have his own Instagram now, sharing photos of his new life.
What do you think of this father/daughter duo?