St. Louis Man Discovers He’s the Son of Yacht Rock Icon Michael McDonald

Michael Goessling, a St. Louis man in his late 50s, always knew he was adopted. He loved his adopted family, having a “wonderful childhood,” though, naturally, he wondered about his biological parents. Recently, he finally discovered the unexpected answer to those lingering question: he’s the son of Michael McDonald. No, for real. The discovery arose after Goessling’s half-brother, one he didn’t know he had, took a 23andMe DNA test. Goessling popped up in the results, the half-brother reached out, and soon enough he was meeting his biological mother on his 58th birthday. Just a short time later, he connected with his biological father over the phone. After Goessling asked his pops what he did for a living, his father answered that he was a musician and, in fact, was set to blow through St. Louis soon. The Doobie Brothers - Best of the Doobie Brothers $25.99 View Details → “And I said, ‘Are you Michael McDonald?’” Goessling recalled in an interview with Kansas City CBS affiliate KCTV. “And he said, ‘Yeah, I’m afraid so.’” McDonald had conceived Goessling when he was just 14 and subsequently put him up for adoption. It was a story he revealed in his 2023 memoir What a Fool Believes. ...