Althea Legaspi
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Michael McDonald performs onstage during the 2025 Songwriters Hall Of Fame Ceremony on June 12, 2025. Theo Wargo/Getty Images Michael Goessling, a St. Louis man who was adopted, has found his birth parents, and one of them happens to be Michael McDonald.
Goessling shared his amazing discovery with KCTV 5. He was adopted when he was an infant by Paul and Kay Goessling. “Always knew I was adopted,” Goessling said. “Had a wonderful childhood. I could not pick two finer folks to raise me.”
Yet, he still wondered about his biological parents, who were both 14 when Goessling was put up for adoption. But then, he was contacted by a half-brother who he didn’t know existed who had taken 23andMe DNA test. “Within 36 hours, he got an email notifying him: Michael Goessling, half-brother, St. Louis,” Goessling recalled. “And that’s how this all began.”
On his 58th birthday, Goessling met his birth mother in person, and later he spoke with his biological father on the phone. Goessling asked what he did for a career, and his dad said he was a musician who would soon be coming through St. Louis while on tour that summer.
“And I said, ‘Are you Michael McDonald?’” Goessling said. “And he said, ‘Yeah, I’m afraid so.’” Turns out that it was the Michael McDonald — of Doobie Brothers and “What a Fool Believes” and “This Is It” and “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near),” and many other hits fame. And though they share the same first name, that was not an intentional pick by his adopted parents.
Goessling’s biological mother and father have remained close and discussed their son over the years. “We always talked about him. And it always came down to our greatest fear was, how did life treat him?” McDonald told the St. Louis outlet. “I always carried that guilt with me. But just to know that he was okay and that he had a good life, and a life certainly that I wouldn’t have been able to afford him at that time, was a great reward. The real rock stars in this story are his adoptive parents.”
