Who Are Misty Copeland's Parents? Here's the Truth About Her Tragic Childhood

The Breakdown: Misty Copeland has spent her entire career defying the odds. A child of a struggling single mother and absent father, Copeland danced her way through difficult circumstances to become a renowned ballerina and the American Ballet Theatre’s first African American principal dancer.

Misty Copeland found ballet later than most ballerinas do. She started at 13. Within three months, she was en pointe, a feat that usually takes years to accomplish. By 18, she had joined the American Ballet Theatre. The company would later appoint her the first African American principal dancer in its 75-year history.

Copeland’s impact on American ballet is unmatched. But her story has not always been a fairytale. Here’s a look at Misty Copeland’s parents, her tumultuous childhood, and her rise to fame.

Misty Copeland was born in 1982 to Sylvia Delacerna and Doug Copeland. By the time Copeland was two, her father was no longer in the picture, and her mother began a series of marriages and relationships that were often challenging.

In Delacerna’s fourth marriage, things became especially bad. Copeland’s stepfather was emotionally and physically abusive to her, her five siblings, and her mother. Delacerna left the marriage to protect herself and her children, but that came with financial struggles. Delacerna worked multiple jobs to make ends meet, and the family lived in a motel.

While Copeland grew up with her mother and siblings, she did not reunite with her father until she was an adult. Her eldest brother, Doug Jr., reached out to their biological father. Copeland eventually decided that she wanted to meet him herself.

“I think that it took looking back and connecting with my father to really understand that and become the person and artist that I wanted to become,” Copeland said to Graham Bensinger in an interview when discussing her reason for reuniting with her father. She added that it did take some time to build a bond with a parent she hadn’t known for her entire childhood, but the pair are now close.

There were many eventful years between Copeland’s childhood with her mother and her adult reconnection with her father. While the instability of her family’s frequent moves and the traumatic experience of an abusive stepparent made Copeland an anxious child, she found comfort in performance.

Copeland was inspired by Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci and the music of Mariah Carey, and she would create and perform dance routines at home. Her eldest sister, Erica, was on the drill team, and she encouraged Copeland to join too. Copeland eventually became her middle school team’s captain, and her coach pushed her to try ballet at the local YMCA.

After two weeks of reluctantly observing the other dancers, Copeland finally took the dance floor of Cynthia Bradley’s class and discovered her natural talent for learning choreography and dancing en pointe. Bradley took Copeland under her wing, and the young dancer flourished.

In 2023, Copeland took a break from performing to start her family. She and her husband, Olu Evans, welcomed a baby boy named Jackson. But while Copeland proudly shares her professional accomplishments, she keeps her son out of the limelight.

Copeland has been open in the past about the trauma of having the most difficult parts of her childhood made public, and she’s committed to giving her son the gift of growing up with privacy. She told People, “Definitely with my son, I wouldn’t have him probably be on camera for anything.”