Sunderland, U.K. – A woman whose father raped her because he ‘couldn’t afford a prostitute’ has finally spoken out about her ordeal to encourage other victims to prosecute their abusers. Sylvia Prescott, from Sunderland, was tormented by her parent Oliver Garside while she was a teenager but kept the abuse secret for nearly 30 years. The 47-year-old couldn’t bring herself to go to the police while her grandmother was still alive for fear that the details of the case would upset her. READ MORE HERE

Coming out as a gay athlete takes courage — just ask Michael Sam, the first openly gay player drafted into the NFL. In his first television interview since being cut from the Dallas Cowboys, Sam opens up to Oprah about the painful experiences he endured as a child. One of eight children, Sam grew up in the small town of Hitchcock, Texas. Of his five brothers, one was killed, and another was declared dead after going missing. Sam says his remaining older brothers were always getting into trouble and known around town as the “damn Sams.” READ MORE HERE

Your child being abused is every parents worst nightmare, but for one couple, it was happening right under their nose in their own home. Ben was just 13 when he became the victim of online grooming and ultimately sexual abuse by four adult men. His parents, increasingly concerned about his reclusive behavior, only discovered what was happening when they overheard a late night phone call between Ben and his abusers. What followed is a harrowing tale of not only unwinding the psychological control the groomers had over their son, but a struggle to get support and to see the abusers convicted. READ MORE HERE

Joanne turned detective in her quest for justice for her son

Cuddling his tiny nephew in his arms, Norman Shepherd looks every inch the doting uncle as, by his side, the baby’s mother proudly looks on. It is the sort of casual but intimate snapshot that graces countless family albums, yet today Joanne Fowler can hardly bear to look at the photograph. Once that young mother in the picture, now — years later — she is still coming to terms with the horrific betrayal it represents. READ MORE HERE

Claims he was ‘snatched off the street’ by a stranger in Brooklyn

Mike Tyson has revealed he was sexually abused by a stranger when he was a child growing up in Brooklyn. The 48-year-old said during a radio interview on Wednesday that the molestation took place when he was seven. ‘He snatched me off the street,’ the boxing legend said during a visit to SiriusXM’s Opie Radio show. ‘I was a little kid…[he was an] old man.’ READ MORE HERE

She shot to fame with a provocative Calvin Klein ad campaign in the seventies and starring roles in the films The Blue Lagoon and Endless Love in the eighties. Yet behind the glitz and glamour that accompanied her celebrity, Brooke Shields recalls a childhood that was overshadowed by her mother’s dependency on alcohol. In an excerpt of her upcoming memoir There Was A Little Girl the 49-year-old has turned the spotlight on her relationship with her mother Teri Shields, who passed away at the age of 79 in 2012. READ MORE HERE

Hollywood star reveals he suffered horrific child abuse

Hollywood actor Alan Cumming has revealed the horrific abuse he suffered as a child, at the hands of his father. The X Men star has opened up about his troubled childhood in his new autobiography, Not My Father’s Son. The Scottish actor talks in detail about his tough upbringing, and says that his father Alex, who died in 2010, used to beat him throughout his childhood. In one particularly troubling chapter, Alan recalls a time when his father held him down and cut his hair off with a pair of clippers used for shaving sheep.  “My head was propelled forward by his hand, the other one wielding a rusty pair of clippers that he used on the sheep. They were blunt and dirty and they cut my skin, but my father shaved my head with them, holding me down like an animal,” wrote Alex. READ MORE HERE

Rose was just 15, a student at Central Bucks South — and lonely. She logged on to the social networking site Myspace, sharing secrets with an older man about her troubled and abusive home life. He told her what she wanted to hear: that he’d take care of her. He bought her a Chanel purse, spent hundreds of dollars on meals for her and treated her to manicures and pedicures. He made her feel pretty, wanted. Rose, whose real name is being withheld, left home and moved in with him. Soon, they moved out of the area where she had been raised. And then he began asking for “favors.” READ MORE HERE

Jane Fonda opens up about her mother’s suicide and history of sexual abuse

Jane Fonda, 76, told an audience of activists and philanthropists that her mother had been sexually abused and eventually committed suicide. Fonda made the personal revelation at an event celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Rape Treatment Center, which provides comprehensive free treatment for sexual assault victims. She hosted the Rape Foundation’s annual fundraising brunch on Sunday at billionaire Ron Burkle’s Greenacres estate in Beverly Hills.  READ MORE HERE

FOR MY MOTHER | Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda’s mom sexually abused

Jane Fonda opens up about her mother’s suicide

A new book has expressed in detail the sexual activities of a Satanic sex cult that apparently controlled a single cul-de-sac in the village of Kidwelly, Wales, and submitted a young girl from the age of seven to varied sexual abuse in a bid to appease the imagined God of an Edwardian sadist. The book, called the ‘Devil on the Doorstep‘, tells of the group which followed the teaching of ‘The Great Beast’ Aleister Crowley, who inducted the girl into their ring after she witnessed her mother performing sexual acts as part of a pseudo-religious ceremony when she was only seven years old. At the age of eleven the group leader took her virginity and she was soon being subjected to group orgies. READ MORE HERE

Redfoo reveals he was victim of bullying as mixed race child and opens up about mother’s abusive ex boyfriend in candid interview

Redfoo may have made a name for himself as a wild-haired, leopard-print wearing party rocker. But underneath the brightly colored exterior, the X Factor judge hides a tough past of school-yard bullying and domestic abuse. Opening up about his difficult childhood on a special edition of Sunday Night this week, the former LMFAO singer revealed he was called ‘Oreo’ and ‘zebra’ while being chastised for being of mixed race. READ MORE HERE

At some point during their childhood, one in three girls and one in seven boys will be sexually abused, and an estimated 85% of those children are abused by people they know. At age 12 and age 14, actress Jan Broberg was kidnapped, repeatedly sexually abused, and raped by a close family friend, and was so brainwashed that she believed that her abuser was her soulmate. Now, a grown-up and well-adjusted Broberg is currently filming a documentary to tell her story, in hopes of educating families about how to protect their children from being preyed upon, especially by those they know.  READ MORE HERE

Robert Montagu was abused by his father, the 10th Earl of Sandwich

When Robert Montagu, younger brother of the Earl of Sandwich, first decided to publish his memoir, he thought he’d present it as fiction, using a pseudonym, such was the painful nature of the story that was about to unfold. His was a disturbing tale about an innocent seven-year-old boy whose father confused love with lust and abused him on an almost daily basis until he was 11. Yet Robert, son of the 10th Earl of Sandwich, knew all too well this was not fiction. And when A Humour Of Love is published next month, it will be under his own name. READ MORE HERE

Furious families demand the truth about child sex abuse scandals

A secret Catholic Church report found an Australian parish priest had been internally investigated and found guilty of child sex abuse, despite no criminal charges ever being laid against him. A report into a confidential investigation into Father Peter Searson of the Doveton parish, south east of Melbourne, in 1997 found he was guilty of the offences, ABC’s Four Corners reports. While Cardinal George Pell rejected a church cover-up of Father Searson’s crimes when he gave evidence at last year’s Victorian inquiry into child sex abuse, he did not make reference to the internal 1997 investigation or the finding that he had sexually abused children in his parish. READ MORE HERE