Ellen DeGeneres's mom speaks out for the first time about not believing her daughter's sex abuse claims

Ellen DeGeneres’s mom, Betty, is speaking out for the first time about dismissing her daughter’s sexual abuse allegations.

In DeGeneres’ interview for David Letterman’s Netflix series, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, the comedian revisited the claim that she first publicly made in 2005 — that her stepfather abused her when she was 15. The Ellen DeGeneres Show host, 61, said that her mother didn’t believe her when she went to her about the abuse, staying married to the man for 18 more years before finally leaving him because “he'd changed the story so many times.”

In a statement to NBC News, Betty, 89, said she lives with “regret” over not believing her daughter.

“I know now that one of the hardest things to do is speak up after being sexually abused,” Betty wrote. She wished she “had the capacity to listen” when DeGeneres first confided in her.

The statement ended with Betty urging others to listen when someone comes to them with similar claims, writing, “If someone in your life has the courage to speak out, please believe them.”

DeGeneres told Letterman that her stepfather used Betty’s breast cancer as a way to abuse her. He said he wanted to examine her breasts after finding a lump in her mother’s. DeGeneres, who said in 2005 that the abuse then escalated, said things with the man exploded one night when he tried to get in her room and she kicked out a window to escape, spending the night in a hospital.

When she told her mother about the abuse a few years later, DeGeneres said Betty called her a liar and stayed married to the man. Two decades later, Betty ended the marriage because his story denying the abuse kept shifting. DeGeneres said while close with her mom, she still feels let down by her.

"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,” DeGeneres told Letterman. “I wish she would have believed me.' And she's apologetic, but, you know.”

DeGeneres first went public with the allegations against her stepfather in Allure magazine in 2005. By then, her former stepfather was already deceased.

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