Over the years, many Hollywood stars have bravely come forward with their experiences of abuse — whether they be survivors of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, child abuse or another form of torment.
“It would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable,” Jessica SimpsonIn her 2020 memoir, she details how she was sexually abused as an infant. Open Book “I wanted to tell my parents. I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong.”
She added: “We never stayed at my parents’ friends’ house again but we also didn’t talk about what I had said.”
Simpson later confronted her attacker and revealed that she eventually forgiven them.
“I would say about eight years ago I confronted her,” the Newlyweds alum said during a July 2020 appearance on the “Gift of Forgiveness” podcast. “I went to her and I just said, ‘I know you know what was going on and I know that you were being abused,’ ‘cause she was being abused by an older guy. And basically, and he was always there at the house as well — he never touched me, but he would abuse her and then she would come to me and do the stuff to me — and so in so many ways I felt bad for her and I was allowing the abuse to happen.”
Former Bachelorette Clare CrawleyHe also spoke out about his experience with abuse.
“I grew up going to a Catholic school and I was the victim of a predator,” the California-based hairstylist revealed during a September 2021 appearance on Red Table Talk: The Estefans. “My parents looked at Catholic priests as — they held them on a pedestal.”
Crawley was briefly the season 16 lead of The Bachelorette, added: “My parents did the best they could and reached out for the resources they could at the time and sent me to this priest. I don’t think there was any counseling that was done. It was a one-on-one time to be a predator.”
Scroll down to see the accounts of famous survivors like Tyra Banks, Jessica SimpsonAnd Mary J. Blige.
For confidential support, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-7233 if your or someone you care about is experiencing domestic abuse. To receive confidential support if you have suffered sexual assault, please call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline (800 656-4673). To report child abuse, consult the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Child Welfare Information Gateway for state-specific reporting phone numbers.
