Celebrities Who Opened up About Being Victims of Domestic Abuse
Over the years, celebrities have opened up about a series of obstacles and experiences that make us feel less alone. After all, there’s nothing quite like a celebrity opening up about their struggles to put our lives into perspective.
Most recently, Cassie opened up about enduring years of abuse next to her former partner, Sean “Diddy” Combs. In it, she not only sent a message to other domestic violence victims around the world but also made a powerful plea to everyone listening.
“My only ask is that EVERYONE open your heart to believing victims the first time,” she wrote on Instagram. “It takes a lot of heart to tell the truth out of a situation that you were powerless in.”
“I offer my hand to those that are still living in fear,” she continued. “Reach out to your people, don’t cut them off. No one should carry this weight alone.”
To find out more stars who opened up about being victims of domestic abuse, scroll below.
If you or someone you know has been the victim of emotional or physical violence, you can get help. To speak with someone who is trained to help with these situations, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800.799.SAFE (7233) or chat online at www.thehotline.org/
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Cassie
Cassie, who was in a relationship with fellow singer Sean “Diddy” Combs from 2007 to 2018, recently opened up about the abuse she endured after a hotel CCTV footage of them hit the headlines.
“Thank you for all the love and support from my family, friends, strangers and those I have yet to meet,” she wrote on Instagram. “The outpouring of love has created a place for my younger self to settle and feel safe now, but this is only the beginning.”
“Domestic violence is THE issue,” she continued. “It broke me down to someone I never thought I would become.”
“With a lot of hard work, I am better today but I will always be recovering from my past,” Cassie continued. “Thank you to everyone that has taken the time to take this matter seriously.”
“This healing journey is never-ending, but this support means everything to me,” she ended. “Thank you.”
Melissa Benoist
In 2019, Supergirl star Melissa Benoist opened up about the domestic violence she experienced in her relationship with her ex-husband, Blake Jenner.
“I am a survivor of domestic violence or IPV (intimate partner violence), which is something I never in my life expected I would say, let alone be broadcasting into the ether,” she said in a candid video on Instagram.
In it, Benoist talked about how her ex’s behavior got worse as their relationship went on, from being controlling to physically abusive. “In retrospect, I see that each red flag followed a very clear path on things becoming violent,” she said.
“The stark truth is I learned what it felt like to be pinned down and slapped repeatedly, punched so hard the wind was knocked out of me, dragged by my hair across pavement, head-butted, pinched until my skin broke, shoved into a wall so hard the drywall broke, choked,” she revealed. “I learned to lock myself in rooms but quickly stopped because the door was inevitably broken down. I learned to not value any of my property — replaceable and irreplaceable. I learned not to value myself.”
Benoist then remembered a moment when Jenner threw a phone at her eye, making her realize she needed to leave.
“The impact tore my iris, nearly ruptured my eyeball, lacerated my skin and broke my nose,” she recalled. “My left eye swelled shut. I had a fat lip… Something inside of me broke, this was too far.”
“This is an injury that’s never going to fully heal, my vision is never going to be the same,” the star continued. “Whatever I thought love was, it certainly wasn’t what I had been going through. I was so tired of living the way I had been living, but it felt too late to get out. Would it be safe to leave?”
Soon after, she confided in a friend who helped her leave the relationship.
“Leaving was not a walk in the park. It is not an event, it’s a process,” she said. “I felt complicated feelings of guilt for leaving and for hurting someone I had protected for so long, and yes, [a] mournful feeling of leaving something familiar. But luckily, the people I let in, the more I was bolstered, I never lost the sense of clarity that kept telling me, ‘You do not deserve this.’”
In 2016, she filed for divorce.
Evan Rachel Wood
In 2021, Evan Rachel Wood referred to her abuser by name in a candid since-deleted Instagram post.
“The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson,” Wood wrote, per Good Morning America.
“[Manson] started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years,” the actress wrote. “I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission.”
“I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander, or blackmail,” she continued. “I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives. I stand with the many victims who will no longer be silent.”
In the HBO documentary Phoenix Rising, the Across the Universe star remembered a few terrifying moments.
“He called me 158 times and cut himself every time I didn’t pick up the phone and said he was going to kill himself,” she claimed. “This is when people in my life said, ‘You need to get a restraining order.’ And I said, ‘Absolutely not, absolutely not.’ Getting a restraining order seemed absolutely crazy to me, because I was like, ‘You’re only going to make him more mad.'”
“I went back to his home to try to defuse the situation after he’d been cutting himself and threatening suicide,” she added on GMA. “And I was severely punished.”
The pair split in 2011.
Tina Turner
The late Tina Turner was candid about the abuse she endured when she was married to her ex, Ike Turner, from 1962 to 1978.
“I was living a life of death,” Turner told People in 1981. “I didn’t exist. I didn’t fear him killing me when I left, because I was already dead. When I walked out, I didn’t look back.”
The “The Best” singer then remembered the moment she left her husband. It all happened after he beat her “the entire way from the airport to the hotel.” “By the time we got to the hotel, the left side of my face was swollen like a monster’s,” Turner recalled.
At the hotel, Turner said, “I massaged him and cooed, ‘Can I order you any food, dear?’ Then he made the mistake of going to sleep.” When he fell asleep, Turner left the hotel and sprinted across the freeway.
“It was just time to not take any more,” she explained. “It was constantly abusive, other things going on, there was no control, there was no freedom, it was just the same this, same this and the violence. You just get fed up and you say, ‘Life is not worth living if I’m going to stay in this situation.’ “
Sharon Osbourne
Sharon Osbourne has been open about the physical abuse she’s experienced at the hands of her dad and her husband, Ozzy Osbourne.
“[My dad] would whack me and he used to yank my hair,” Osbourne said on a U.K. talk show in 2007, per Us Weekly. “As punishment, my dad used to lock me in the unlit coal cupboard in the basement. I still panic in confined spaces to this day.”
In her on-and-off marriage, Osbourne has endured violence from her partner too. “I would wake up with my two front teeth missing,” she told Event Magazine, per The Sun. According to the host, she then found her teeth in the hallway and had a dentist fix them.
“We would be punching each other even when Ozzy was on stage performing,” she added.
Rihanna
Back in 2009, Rihanna was physically assaulted by her boyfriend, fellow singer Chris Brown, as they left a Grammys pre-party. Many years later, she talked about the experience, including her mixed feelings about becoming a “poster child” for victims of physical abuse.
“Well, I just never understood that,” she told Vanity Fair in 2015. “How the victim gets punished over and over. It’s in the past, and I don’t want to say ‘Get over it,’ because it’s a very serious thing that is still relevant; it’s still real. A lot of women, a lot of young girls, are still going through it. A lot of young boys too. It’s not a subject to sweep under the rug, so I can’t just dismiss it like it wasn’t anything, or I don’t take it seriously. But, for me, and anyone who’s been a victim of domestic abuse, nobody wants to even remember it. Nobody even wants to admit it. So to talk about it and say it once, much less 200 times, is like … I have to be punished for it? It didn’t sit well with me.”
“I was that girl,” she continued. “That girl who felt that as much pain as this relationship is, maybe some people are built stronger than others. Maybe I’m one of those people built to handle shit like this. Maybe I’m the person who’s almost the guardian angel to this person, to be there when they’re not strong enough, when they’re not understanding the world, when they just need someone to encourage them in a positive way and say the right thing.”
“I was very protective of him,” Rihanna said of Brown. “I felt that people didn’t understand him. Even after … But you know, you realize after a while that in that situation you’re the enemy. You want the best for them, but if you remind them of their failures, or if you remind them of bad moments in their life, or even if you say I’m willing to put up with something, they think less of you—because they know you don’t deserve what they’re going to give. And if you put up with it, maybe you are agreeing that you [deserve] this, and that’s when I finally had to say, ‘Uh-oh, I was stupid thinking I was built for this.’ Sometimes you just have to walk away.”
The pair, who broke up after this incident, briefly reconnected in 2012 before calling it quits for good in 2013.
Robin Givens
In 1988, Robin Givens opened up to Barbara Walters about the domestic abuse she suffered at the hands of her ex-husband Mike Tyson. In the interview, Givens and Tyson were sitting side-by-side.
“He’s got a side to him that’s scary,” Givens told the host, before revealing the abuse.
“He shakes. He pushes. He swings. Sometimes I think he’s trying to scare me,” she said. “There are times when I thought I could handle it, and just recently, I’ve become afraid. I mean very, very much afraid. For instance, in Russia, I was afraid. Michael is a manic depressive.”
“I think for the first time I can understand abused women…you know, you say, ‘Why do you stay in there?’ Well, number one, you love the person, and number two, you get accustomed to being treated poorly,” she reflected. “So every day, behavior that you would normally not accept becomes everyday behavior.”
A week after the infamous interview, Givens filed for divorce.
Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron has been open about her difficult upbringing in the past. In 2019, she opened up about her father’s addiction issues that resulted in her mom shooting him in self-defense in 1991.
“The day-to-day unpredictability of living with an addict is the thing that you sit with and have kind of embedded in your body for the rest of your life, more than just this one event of what happened one night,” she told NPR. “I think our family was an incredibly unhealthy one. And all of it, I think, scarred us in a way. Of course, I wish what happened that night would have never happened. It’s unfortunately what happens when you don’t get to the root of these issues.”
Theron then remembered the tragic night. “My father was so drunk that he shouldn’t have been able to walk when he came into the house with a gun,” the Oscar winner recalled. “My mom and I were in my bedroom leaning against the door, because he was trying to push through the door. So both of us were leaning against the door from the inside to have him not be able to push through.”
“He took a step back and just shot through the door three times,” she remembered. “None of those bullets ever hit us, which is just a miracle. But in self-defense, she ended the threat.”
Tyler Perry
Tyler Perry opened up in 2019 about his childhood struggles, including being beaten up by his dad, Emmitt, who was an abusive alcoholic. In an interview with People, Tyler remembered being beaten so severely with a vacuum cord that it ripped the skin off his back.
“I don’t think I ever felt safe or protected as a child,” Perry told the outlet.
As a result, he would often hide under the front porch of his house and let his creativity transport him somewhere else. “I could escape and be somewhere else,” he added.
Halle Berry
Halle Berry has also opened up about her troubled relationship with her father. “There’s lots of abuse in my childhood,” Berry told the Fresh Air podcast in 2021, per People. “I grew up with an alcoholic father that was very abusive, both verbally, emotionally, physically,” Berry said.
Her dad, Jerome Jesse Berry, died in 2003. After his passing, Berry worked with a spiritual healer to work through her struggles in their relationship and ended up forgiving him. “While I didn’t have much of a relationship with him while he was here, as he was alcohol addicted and that addiction robbed us of the relationship we were meant to have, I now understand how much he loved me and how vital he was and is to my life!” the actress wrote on Instagram in 2019. “I miss you today daddy and wherever you are, I know you’re smiling down on me because I feel your love!”
Christina Aguilera
Christina Aguilera also witnessed abuse and violence first-hand growing up. “I grew up in a chaotic upbringing as a very young child, always feeling like a protector and all that, and always felt isolated in my situation,” Aguilera told the Call Her Daddy podcast, per People.
Over the years, the “Beautiful” singer saw her mother suffer throughout their relationship with her father, Fausto Aguilera.
“There was some back and forth,” Aguilera admitted. “There’s always the tug of like, ‘I’m never gonna do it again.’ There’s sweet-talking involved. There’s a lot of shame also in like, ‘Well, why don’t you just leave?'”
“It is so much more complicated than that, and it’s a mental breakdown of self-esteem, and you start to believe someone else’s narrative and verbal abuse to you,” Aguilera explained.
“It takes a lot for a woman to leave those situations as well, and my heart goes out because some of them don’t leave them, and that could vary in a lot of ways,” Aguilera continued. “Sometimes it’s financial, sometimes it’s fear of authorities not helping, and then it getting worse. Sometimes it feels like there’s no way out.”
