Justine Tuckett/Instagram
October 27, 2021, 7:00 am
Justine Tuckett and her father went viral after partnering up for a TikTok dance, but the story behind the video is what’s really getting people’s attention.
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Bill Lorance was just released from prison earlier this month after serving 22 years for murdering his stepfather. His now-grown daughter was waiting to pick him up, and after starting to settle back in, he asked to do some sort of special dance routine just the two of them — Justine is a dance fitness instructor and Bill had, of course, missed all her school dances and wedding.
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They settled on a song with a simple routine and recorded it for the social media platform, while also taking a moment to share some of their story.
“Every Birthday I would blow out my candle and wish for my Dad to get out of prison,” Justine wrote. “I did this until I was old enough to realize a candle wouldn’t bring him back to me. He had to change. And he did, he did the work, he changed, and now he’s here. And we couldn’t be happier.”
@justinetuckett106 Every Birthday I would blow out my candle and wish for my Dad to get out of prison. I did this untill I was old enough to realized a candle wouldn’t bring him back to me. He had to change. And he did, he did the work, he changed, and now he’s here
And we couldn’t be happier. #prisontiktok
On Instagram, she added a message for those who might have something negative to say about her dad: “Some resilient people CAN be reformed. Some people DESERVE to re-enter society again.”
Following the attention received by their dance, Justine and her dad have been sharing more content of him trying new things and old favorites after spending over two decades in prison.
But while the two are clearly overjoyed at the chance to make up for lost time, the comments are a little rougher. Some people are drawing a hard line, saying Justine shouldn’t be dancing or celebrating life with her dad because of what he did, while others say he served his time.
“In the eyes of the law he’s been rehabilitated and is set to be in public,” wrote @gotchbrothers. “Let it go.”
“I love how much social media is normalizing going to prison. Being an ex-con was so demonized when I was growing,” another user added. “But people make mistakes, they learn.”
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For his part, Bill tells BuzzFeed he’s “interested in speaking about how guys can be rehabilitated while doing time.”
And no matter what the people in the comments say, Justine is just happy to have her dad back in her life.
*First Published: October 27, 2021, 7:00 am
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