Jazz legend Louis Armstrong's secret daughter has gone public with an expose on her late father after selling off love letters he sent her mother in the 1950s and 1960s at auction earlier this month (Dec12).

Sharon Preston-Folta had a pre-Christmas windfall when a treasure trove of correspondences between her mother and Satchmo sold in Los Angeles at a Profiles in History auction, and now she has written a memoir about her dad's secret life.

Preston-Folta, who was born in 1954, was Armstrong's only child, and although he visited her and her mum Lucille regularly and paid for his daughter's education, he never publicly acknowledged her as his own and left her nothing in his will.

Globe magazine reports her father's manager sent her savings bonds to help her pay for her education after Armstrong died in 1971, and now she's ready to break her silence about her links to the What a Wonderful World hitmaker.

She says, "I chose to tell my story now because it's about my legacy. I have every right to say who I am, to be proud of it. It was never a secret to me who my father was."