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Ellen DeGeneres claims she was sexually abused by stepdad who would ‘check breasts for lumps’


Ellen DeGeneres claims she was sexually assaulted by stepdad (Picture: Getty)

Ellen DeGeneres has claimed she was sexually assaulted by her stepdad when she was teenager, in an emotional interview.

During an appearance on David Letterman’s Netflix series, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, the chat show host spoke out about her past, telling the presenter her stepdad would pretend to check her breasts for lumps, after her mum was diagnosed with breast cancer.

‘Because I didn’t know about bodies, I don’t know that breasts are all different and…,’ the 61-year-old began. ‘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… and I didn’t want to tell my mother cause I was protecting her and I knew that would ruin her happiness.’

Ellen told her mum, Betty, about the allegations a few years after it happened, but she didn’t believe her, and chose to stay with her husband for around 18 years.

‘I’m angry at myself because, you know, I didn’t… I was too weak to stand up to… I was 15 or 16,’ she continued. ‘It’s a really horrible, horrible story and the only reason I’m actually going to go into detail about it is because I want other girls to not, you know, ever let someone do that…

‘I should never have protected her. I should have protected myself and I didn’t tell her for a few years and then I told her.

Ellen claimed her mum didn’t believe her at the time (Picture: Getty)

‘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.’

The chat show host claimed it was only recently that she told her mum she wished she had believed her at the time, something Betty was ‘apologetic’ over.

‘I always have taken care of her my whole life. So I just kept taking care of her,’ she said.

‘I didn’t really let it get to me. Until recently, I kind of went, “I wish I would have been better taken care of. I wish she would have believed me”. And she’s apologetic, but, you know…’

Discussing why she decided to speak out about the abuse, Ellen told David: ‘We [women] just don’t feel like we’re worthy, or we’re scared to have a voice, and we’re scared to say no.

‘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.



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