Ellen DeGeneres has shared that she was sexually assaulted at the age of fifteen by her stepfather. Appearing on David Letterman’s new Netflix series, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, DeGeneres revealed she was assaulted by her stepfather when she was a teenager and talks about her mother Betty DeGeneres remarrying a “very bad man”.
That’s another thing that, you know, I’m angry at myself because…I was too weak to stand up – I was 15 or 16 and…I mean, it’s a really horrible, horrible story and the only reason I’m actually gonna go into detail about it is because I want other girls to not, you know, ever let someone do that,” she explained.
“My mother had had breast cancer right after they got married,” the 61-year-old host continues. “So she had a breast removed, and they had a very, very sexual relationship, which was also very uncomfortable for me. And he told me when she was out of town that he’d felt a lump in her breast and needed to feel my breasts because he didn’t want to upset her, but he needed to feel mine.”
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“Again, ’cause I didn’t know about bodies, I don’t know that breasts are all different and…anyway, he convinced me that he needs to feel my breasts and then he tries to do it again another time, and then another time, he tried to break my door down, and I kicked the window out and ran ’cause I knew it was gonna do – it was gonna go more to something,” she continues. “And I didn’t want to tell my mother, ’cause I was protecting her and I knew that that would ruin her happiness.”
“I should have protected myself,” DeGeneres tells Letterman. “And I didn’t tell her for a few years, and then I told her. And then she didn’t believe me. And then she stayed with him for 18 more years. And finally left him because he’d changed the story so many times.”
“And then she…stayed with him,” DeGeneres says. “So, that made me really angry.”
DeGeneres goes on to say that her coming forward is so other girls and women might feel brave enough to share their stories too. “That’s the only reason I think it’s important to talk about it because there are so many young girls, and it doesn’t matter how old you are, and when I see people speaking out, especially now, it angers me when victims aren’t believed because we just don’t make stuff up. And I like men, but there are so many men that get away with so much. It is just time for us to have a voice. It’s time for us to have power.”
If you are impacted by assault, domestic or family violence call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au. If you need help immediately, please call 000.
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