Rose Lenore was just 11 months old when her mother was killed — and her dad was accused of pulling the trigger.
Robert Blake’s daughter Rose Lenore is speaking to Inside Edition about her mother’s death and her famous father’s alleged involvement in the case.
Blake, the star of TV’s hit '70s show “Baretta,” was accused of killing his wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley in May 2001. A criminal jury acquitted him in 2005. But a civil trial found him responsible for her death.
Now 18 years later, Rose is grown up and breaking her silence.
Rose was raised by Blake’s other daughter, Delinah. They lived out of the spotlight in Sherman Oaks, California.
Rose has had zero recent contact with her father until this year when she reached to him.
"I haven’t really felt ready until now. As a kid, I had a really private life, and now I am an adult and I think it is time," she told Inside Edition.
She said the first meeting was tense.
"I felt like waiting would not be a good option because I would regret not seeing him," she said, adding it was "overwhelming, it was a lot to take in. We did not hug."
She said she asked her father “not to talk” about Bakley because she “felt I wasn’t ready to handle that.”
She said she has “no idea” if he is responsible for Bakley’s death, saying, “I don’t remember it, obviously. I only know as much as everyone else knows.”
Rose has not kept in touch with her mother's side of the family. At the murder trial, Bakley was depicted as a grifter.
"People have a lot of negative things to say about her and that is really hard to hear. I choose to just focus on the good," she said of Bakley.
Now Rose wants to become an actor like her father. Her story is featured in this week's People magazine on newsstands Friday.
She told Inside Edition that her father "is very supportive of” her acting career.
Rose said she wants to have a relationship with Blake, who is now 86 years old, even though there are so many unanswered questions.
When she looks back at old photos of her with her dad, she says of herself, “I feel sad for her but definitely proud of how far she has come."
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