ELLEN DEGENERES DESCRIBES BEING SEXUALLY ABUSED BY HER STEPFATHER
Ellen Degeneres has described being sexually assaulted by her stepfather as a teenager. The 61-year-old made the claims on Netflix’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman where she said that he groped her breasts several times when she was a young teenager by claiming to be looking for lumps.
Ellen’s mother Betty, who is a breast cancer survivor, did not initially believe her when she told her and stayed with him for 18 years
She did not name her stepfather during the interview. In 1973, when
Ellen was the age she was when she says the attack happened, her mother married Texas salesman Roy Grussendorf. He died in 1997.
On the show, Degeneres recalled how her stepfather pretended to be checking her breasts for lumps when the alleged abuse began.
‘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.
‘Again, because 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 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,’ she said. She added that while her mother Betty is ‘apologetic’ about everything now, she did not believe her when she initially confided in her a few years after the incident.
Betty stayed with the man for 18 years. Degeneres has said in past interviews that she eventually left him after his story changed several times and she realized he had abused her daughter.
Ellen explained: ‘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, 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.
‘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.’
Of her mother, she said: ‘I always have taken care of her my whole life. So I just kept taking care of her.
US, (DAILY MAIL ) , 28 MAY 2019
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