For 25 years, Toby Willis ruled over his family of 12 musical kids like a dictator. No one dared oppose the patriarch, as seen on “The Willis Family” on TLC, despite the fact that he was sexually abusing at least four of his young daughters. Other children were beaten, leaving some with bruises and blood.
Willis, 52, is currently serving a 40-year sentence for child rape at the Tennessee state prison in Tiptonville, where he is inmate number 581910. In 2016, his oldest daughter, singer-songwriter Jessica Willis Fisher, courageously reported her father to police.
Her latest autobiography, “Unspeakable” (Thomas Nelson), details both her traumatic upbringing in a fundamentalist Christian household and the nightmare that happened when she attempted to flee the family six years ago. The Willis clan originally rose to fame in 2014, when they featured in season 9 of “America’s Got Talent” and later starred in the short-lived TLC show in 2015 and 2016.
In her new memoir, “Unspeakable,” Willis Fisher recounts her traumatic childhood.
Willis Fisher has fond recollections of her childhood with her siblings, including regular trips to Ireland, but the negative memories significantly outnumber the positive ones.
During a recent trip to New York with her husband, photographer Sean Fisher, she told The Post, “I was literally doing shows, singing, and putting on a performance, but I was also putting on a performance every day offstage as well, appearing to be happy.” “I was spanked and beaten for not smiling.”
Toby Willis, 52, is currently serving a 40-year sentence at the Tennessee state prison in Tiptonville.
Jessica was not allowed to have a smartphone or go on dates without a chaperone until she was 23 years old, despite being the lead vocalist, fiddle player, and primary songwriter for the family band. Like all of her siblings, her dress and hairstyle had to be authorized by her dad — who maintained a stash of AR-15s at the house. In her early 20s, when she began to rebel and signaled she intended to leave home, her father labeled her “demonic.” Although they were well aware of Toby Willis’ lengthy history of abuse, her mother and some of her siblings advised her not to go and blamed her for disturbing the family dynamic.
Toby’s upbringing was marred by tragedy. In 1994, six of their nine children were killed in a catastrophic vehicle accident in Wisconsin. His parents, pastor Scott and wife Janet, were the only survivors. Later, the family was awarded a $100 million settlement.
The Willis family first came to the attention of the public in 2014, when they participated on the ninth season of “America’s Got Talent.”
Toby, a high school wrestling champion, met his future wife Brenda while they were both adolescents. They wed about 1990 and promptly started a family; their eldest child, Jessica, was born in the Chicago region in 1992. The family grew — there would be 12 kids in total all with names beginning with “J” — and in 2001, they moved just outside of Nashville, Tenn., in a house that formerly belonged to country artist Randy Travis. They homeschooled their children, mandating severe extracurricular activities including wrestling, competitive swing dancing, playing instruments and singing.
After lying silent for decades, Willis Fisher, now 30, first wrote about her childhood in a stunning 2018 blog post that began in part, “As far back as I can remember, I was sexually molested by my father. I estimated that I was approximately three years old based on my earliest memories.”
I was singing and performing onstage, but I was also performing daily offstage.
Jessica Willis Fisher discusses the concealed pain of her father’s violence.
Her mother approached her when Jessica was nine and asked her whether her father was behaving inappropriately. Jessica nodded a little hesitantly. Willis Fisher claims that her father denied everything and then got more covert and “hazardous” in his abuse. “I find it shocking that it was never discussed,” she says of the years she and her sisters were assaulted at the Willis house and on tour. “Much later, we got to the stage where there were conversations about the problem, Dad’s problem. But on none of those occasions did I say, “Dad, tell me this.”
It did not come out until August 2015 when Willis Fisher, in misery and a severe depression, sent a 14-page letter to her mother, pouring out the frequently “graphic” abuse she underwent at the hands of her father.
“As far back as I can remember, I was sexually molested by my father,” said Willis Fisher in a 2018 blog post. “I found out I was about three years old in some of the earliest memories.”
Sean Fisher, New York Post
Toby’s family, in which he had a position like to that of a cult leader, was unaffected by the stunning news.
Willis Fisher writes, “My mother urged me to conform during (standoffs with her father), demonstrating that her compassion was only available when my father was not around and demanding her support.” When I pulled her in one direction and Dad in another, Dad’s strings always prevailed.
Brenda Willis, now 53 years old, lives with her younger children outside of Nashville. Six of the Willis children, including Jessica, have tied the knot since their father’s 2016 incarceration. Although Jessica’s mother had divorced Toby, she maintained a photo of him on her Facebook site for several months after his incarceration before deleting it.
Before Jessica Willis Fisher (center) reported her father to police in 2016, the Grand Ole Opry-performing Willis family’s TLC reality show portrayed a cheerful outlook.
TLC
Willis Fisher says, “I know my mother loves me.” “However, she did let me down.”
When The Post called Brenda Willis, she declined to comment and immediately hung up the phone. But she has always supported Jessica on her Facebook page, connecting to her story and expressing her pride in her.
Willis Fisher left her family home on April 7, 2016, with the encouragement of her now-husband Sean, the son of Pete Fisher, who ran the Grand Ole Opry for 30 years before stepping down in 2017. This was just hours after her father beat her with a belt and demanded she apologize to him after an argument.
Willis Fisher resides with her husband in Nashville and keeps amicable relations with her siblings and mom.
Sean Fisher, New York Post
She describes how her relatives physically blocked her from going; her infant sister wailed and clung to her legs. On April 7, though, something within her caused her to crack. She was resolved to leave her hometown for good.
“Staying benefits no one,” Willis Fisher writes of her discovery. “I am unable to save them here. I feared for my life if I did not leave.”
She later explored reaching out to her father in prison and possibly seeing him, but when she found out he had the option of turning down the request, she says she didn’t want to give him that choice.
The memoir is a “witness statement,” according to Willis Fisher, who has recently released the album “Brand New Day” as a complement.
“The fact is I have no idea what my father was thinking,” she says. “Did he truly believe we would continue like this forever? Our family was similar to a cult, and there are cults that span generations. Is this what he anticipated? I don’t know. It’s chilling to recollect some of the dreams he had for us and his grandchildren.”
Despite everything, she remains devoted to her mother and siblings, and emphasises that the book is her own personal story — she can’t speak for her whole family. The portrayal of Jessica’s torture in “Unspeakable” is not overtly graphic, but it does not shy away from certain awful events and comes with a trigger warning. In April, Willis Fisher also released a critically acclaimed CD titled “Brand New Day.” She composed nine of the ten songs and describes the album as a supplement to her memoir, which she refers to as her “witness statement.”
Cover art for “Unspeakable” by Jessica Willis Fisher
“Initially, I wrote this book to cure myself,” Fisher explains.
“That was the first and most essential thing, regardless of whether anyone else saw it. Because I spent nearly 25 years attempting to make others happy. I was trying to shield them by performing in the band or putting on a show that everything was fine, but I was suffering on the inside. Consequently, the priorities had to be rearranged immediately, and I had to begin caring for myself.”
Today, Fisher Willis lives with her husband in Nashville and is friends with her siblings and mom. The previous year, she played at the Grand Ole Opry, where she appeared as a teenager with The Willis Clan, and at other places on a regular basis.
She says, “I don’t want to be defined by what my father did.” People have asked me, ‘Do you want to be defined by this?’ However, since I don’t identify myself by it, it’s none of my business whether others do.
»Jessica Willis Fisher’s ‘Unspeakable’ breaks quiet on father’s abuse«