ABUSE HELL
Gloria Estefan reveals she was abused by family member aged nine on Red Table Talk with fellow victim Clare Crawley
POP star Gloria Estefan opened up about being sexually abused by a family member when she was nine years old who also threatened to “kill” her mom if she talked.
The 64-year-old singer said she remained silent about being molested while attending a music school run by a "trusted" relative.
4
4
“...When I revolted and I told him 'This cannot happen!’ and ‘You cannot do this!’ he goes: ‘Your father's in Vietnam, your mother's alone and I will kill her if you tell her,’” she said the unidentified man told her.
Estefan shared her truth seated next to her grownup daughter Emily and niece Lili.
"Ninety-three per cent of abused children know and trust their abusers. And I know this because I was one of them," she said breaking into tears as she clenched her family members’ hands.
CLARE CRAWLEY MOLESTED TOO
The show also featured 40-year-old .
"I grew up going to a Catholic school and I was the victim of a predator," she said.
"My parents looked at Catholic priests as - they held them on a pedestal."
She believes the trauma she suffered at the holy man’s hands led her to get breast implants.
"It was a vicious cycle because the more I chose the wrong men who treated me poorly, the more I believed I wasn’t good enough.
Clare continued: "Enter the breast implants. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited to get them, but the truth is it was money that would have been better spent on therapy to heal my wounded heart.
"I ended up spending the money on therapy anyway, cut to now. A woman who has learned to love herself deeply on the inside knows her worth, and will fight for herself no matter what."
Her realization coupled with the physical effects she experienced after the surgery caused the California native to get rid of her "toxic" implants.”
“I’m very confident and happy in my decision to remove them for the benefit of my health,” she said .
SHARE ALIKE
After Crawley described being abused by a "counselor" while attending Catholic school, she also stated that she was "the victim of a predator".
Estafan showed empathy for Crawley.
Most read in The Sun
"I wanted to deal with this subject matter because it is so important to try to prevent,” Estefan told Crawley during an episode of .
“I also did not want to sit here quietly while you share and are brave.”
ABUSER WAS ‘TRUSTED’ FAMILY
Ms Estefan, whose hits include Conga and Rhythm is Gonna Get You, said the music school family member manipulated her mother's trust.
“I was 9-years-old when this happened and it was someone that my mother trusted,” Estefan said, adding that her mother enrolled her to study classical music.
The man started by showering the then-young girl with praise.
“He immediately started telling her how talented I was and how I needed special attention,” she said.
And her mother “felt lucky” that he was “focusing this special attention on me.”
‘LITTLE BY LITTLE’
The singer said her abuser started with seemingly innocent praise.
“He put it in a way like, ‘Oh you're so good at this’ and ‘Let me teach you,’” she said.
She added: “It starts little by little and then it goes fast.”
DEATH THREAT ON MOM
After she raised her protest the man threatened her mother, Estefan believed the man would follow through with it.
“I knew the man was insane and that's why I thought he would actually hurt my mother,” she said.
So Estefan attempted to feign illness or invent excuses to skip school any way she could to avoid coming in contact with her abuser.
“I tried every which way to get out of going to that school,” she said. “I invented that I was sick.”
READ MORE SUN STORIES
She further felt like she was isolated because her mother considered discussing such devastating incidents to be off-limits.
“That was not talked about at all in her lifetime,” she said.
4
4
We pay for your stories!
Do you have a story for The US Sun team?
Email us at [email protected] or call 212 416 4552.
Like us on Facebook at and follow us from our main Twitter account at
Topics