Ellen DeGeneres reveals dark family trauma

Recently, Ellen DeGeneres revealed a dark family secret, hoping her unreserved admission will help others experiencing the same. The comedian says she wishes she was protected as a vulnerable youngster and is “furious at people who don’t believe.”   Ellen DeGeneres, a Louisiana native, gained fame in the late 1970s. Her big break came in 1986 with a stand-up routine on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, leading to more late-night appearances, club bookings, and TV roles. From 1989 to 1990, she starred in the short-lived sitcom Open House and in 1994, she headlined the comedy series These Friends of Mine, later renamed Ellen. She wanted her show to be the talk of the town, and it was, especially after she came out as a lesbian on the show and in real life. Ellen was canceled in 1998, and that same year, she revealed she was in a relationship with actress Anne Heche.

Anne Heche described her first meeting with Ellen DeGeneres as unforgettable, calling her “ravishing” and radiating an aura of fabulousness. The couple ended their relationship in 2000, and later, Heche revealed painful memories of abuse from her past. She spoke about the difficulty of recalling and talking about trauma, noting that it’s hard to prove such experiences, which made her confession even more painful. Heche tragically passed away in a car crash in 2022 at the age of 53.

‘Furious at people’

“As a victim of sexual abuse, I am furious at people who don’t believe it and who say, ‘How do you not remember exactly what day it was?’” DeGeneres told Today’s Savannah Guthrie in 2018. “You don’t remember those things. What you remember is what happened to you, where you were and how you feel. That’s what you remember.” The woman previously opened up about her experience when speaking with Busy Phillips on an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2003 to 2022). “He told me when she was out of town that he’d felt a lump in her breast and needed to feel my breasts,” a tearful woman told Letterman. “He convinced me that he needs to feel my breasts and then he tries to do it again another time, and then another time.” DeGeneres initially kept the assaults hidden from her mother and when she finally mustered the courage to share her truth, her mom refused to believe what she was saying. “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,” she said of her mom, who stayed married to the monster for another 18 years. “…she didn’t believe me…And finally left him because he’d changed the story so many times.”