Robin Thicke stopped by Steve Harvey’s eponymous talk show Monday (April 8) to discuss how his father’s death impacted him.
“I had a little maturing to do,” the pop star told Harvey with a chuckle. “Even though I was in my late 30s, still had a little maturing to do.”
According to the singer, the 2016 death of his father, Growing Pains actor Alan Thicke, spurred that maturation process. “When my father passed, I became the patriarch of my family,” he said. “My young 20-year-old brother, he needed a big brother. … It just felt like now I had to take it onto my shoulders to be a much better, more focused man than I was before.”
Since the release of his 2014 album Paula, Thicke has been largely absent from the Billboard charts — dropping a number of one-off singles with only “Back Together,” his 2015 collaboration with Nicki Minaj, peaking at No. 14 on the Hot R&B Songs chart.
Watch a preview of the Steve interview below, via People.