Ellen DeGeneres opens up about being abused by her stepfather

US talk show queen Ellen DeGeneres is a known face with a huge fan following. Recently she opened up about being abused by her stepfather on David Letterman’s talk show. Ellen DeGeneres will be seen in the upcoming season of David Letterman’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, which will be available to stream from 31 May. The day time talk show host recounted how her stepfather sexually abused her when she was 15 or 16, after her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

According to Vanity Fair, Ellen said, “My mother had had breast cancer right after they got married. 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.”

She further added that, “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 tries to break my door down and I kicked the window out and ran ’cause I knew it was going to go more to something.”

DeGeneres told Letterman that she chose to share her account because she wanted women to stand up against sexual abuse. She said that a few years later she told her mother about her stepfather’s actions. However, her mother did not believe her and stayed with him for 18 years. She only left the man after “he changed the story so many times.”

Ellen DeGeneres, who came out as gay in 1997, first spoke about the abuse in a 2005 interview with Allure, clarifying at the time that the assaults did not influence her sexual orientation. She had even opened up on an episode of Today show last year.

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