Celebrity-talk show host and stand-up comedian Ellen DeGeneres has opened up about being sexually assaulted as a teen. Talking to David Letterman on the latter's Netflix show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, the 61-year-old celebrity and gay rights champion revealed how her mother, Betty's, then-husband assaulted her sexually while she was just "15 or 16." The episode featuring DeGeneres airs on Friday.
Recounting her ordeal, she told Letterman about her father (via cnn.com), "He told me when (my mom) was out of town that he'd felt a lump in her breast and needed to feel my breasts. 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."
With her revelation, DeGeneres hopes to empower other women and girls and push them to show courage. "I'm angry at myself because, you know, I didn't, I was too weak to stand up to, I was 15 or 16. 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 ever let someone do that, she said."
DeGeneres further added, "I should never have protected (my mother). I should have protected myself 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."
Earlier in 2005, DeGeneres revealed that she was molested by her mother's third husband when she was a teenager with Allure magazine. She, however, did not shed light on how long the abuse lasted.
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