Oscar-winning singer is sensationally stripped of the Order of Canada honor after ‘lying about her heritage’

Legendary singer Buffy Sainte-Marie has been sensationally stripped of her honors title after allegedly ‘lying about her heritage.’

The 83-year-old Oscar-winning singer has been stripped of her prestigious Order of Canada following explosive claims she fabricated her Indigenous heritage.

The Order of Canada – bestowed upon more than 7,600 people since 1967 – represents the highest of recognition for ‘extraordinary contributions to the nation.’

The star, who won an Academy Award for co-writing ‘Up Where We Belong,’ had been awarded the Order of Canada in 1997 for her supposed work championing Indigenous causes. 

The decision, quietly published in Canada Gazette on Saturday, comes after 2023’s shocking investigation revealed the singer may have built her entire career on deception.

A notice by Secretary General of the Order of Canada, Ken MacKillop, reads: ‘Notice is hereby given that the appointment of Buffy Sainte-Marie to the Order of Canada was terminated by Ordinance signed by the Governor General [Mary Simon] on January 3, 2025.’

The notice did not provide a clear reason why the award was stripped from Sainte-Marie.

The singer, who shot to fame with her anti-war anthem ‘Universal Soldier’ and ‘Now That the Buffalo’s Gone,’ previously told heartfelt stories about having Mi’kmaq heritage through her adoptive mother. 

But Canadian Broadcasting Corporation exposed the singer’s birth certificate showing she was actually born Beverly Jean Santamaria to white parents in Massachusetts – not the Cree woman from Saskatchewan’s Piapot First Nation she’d claimed to be since the 1960s.

However, Sainte-Marie has denied those allegations, dismissing claims she faked her Indigenous heritage and insisting the investigation into her ancestry included ‘fabricated’ evidence.

‘My growing up mom, who was proud to be part Mi’kmaq, told me many things, including that I was adopted and that I was native,’ Sainte-Marie said. 

‘And later in life, as an adult, she also told me some things that I’ve never shared out of respect for her. That I hate sharing now, including that I may have been born on the wrong side of the blanket.’ 

Sainte-Marie has claimed the network relied on fabricated accounts from her brother Alan, who she says sexually abused her, and two estranged family members that she does not know. 

‘This has been incredibly re-traumatizing for me and unfair to all involved,’ she said.

‘It hurts me deeply to discover that my estranged family grew up scared of me and thinking these lies because of a letter I sent intended to protect me from further abuse from my brother.’ 

Sainte-Marie has always described herself as belonging to the Cree tribe, and says she was adopted as a child by a white family as part of the infamous Sixties Scoop, when Indigenous children in Canada were removed from their families and adopted by white parents.

She has been a folk music icon and Indigenous success story in Canada since she found fame in the 1970s. But members of her family claimed to CBC that she is lying.

CBC also claims to have unearthed a birth certificate that traces her roots to Massachusetts, where she grew up.

However, Sainte-Marie has insisted she has never seen this birth certificate before and does not know these family members.

‘I have never lied about my identity. The more I’ve known, the more I’ve pieced together a sense of self from what information has been available to me,’ she said. 

‘What I know about my Indigenous ancestry I learned from my growing up mother, who was of Mi’kmaq heritage, and my own research later in life.

‘My mother told me that I was adopted and that I was Native, but there was no documentation as was common for Indigenous children at the time.

‘For decades, I tried to find my birth parents and information about my background. Through that research what became clear, and what I’ve always been honest about: I don’t know where I’m from or who my birth parents are, and I will never know. 

‘Which is why, to be questioned in this way is painful, both for me, and for my two families I love so dearly.’

Sainte-Marie claimed the evidence used to question her background was ‘fabricated’ by her brother and then repeated by two estranged family members.