In Common's just-released memoir Let Love Have the Last Word: A Memoir, he opens up for the first time about being molested as a child.
In the book, the hard copy for which was released on Tuesday (May 7), the Chicago rhymer shares his repressed memories of being molested at the age of 9 or 10 years old. He says the memories began to surface as he and his friend, actress Laura Dern, were prepping for their scenes in the 2018 dramatic film, The Tale.
"I was excited for a road trip I was about to take with my family. My mother; my godmother, Barbara; her son and my godbrother Skeet; and his relative, who I'll call Brandon..." Common writes (excerpt via People).
Once at his aunt's house in Cleveland, Ohio, Common reveals that he and Brandon were made to share a bed together one night of the trip. "At some point, I felt Brandon's hand on me," he continues at another point of his story. "I pushed him away. I don't remember saying a whole lot besides 'No, no, no.'"
But Common's abuser would not stop. “He kept saying ‘It’s okay, It’s okay,’ as he pulled down my shorts and molested me," the rapper-actor writes.
"After he stopped he kept asking me to perform it on him. I kept repeating ‘No’ and pushing him away,” Common continues. “I felt a deep and sudden shame for what happened.”
Speaking with TMZ about the troubling memory and how he coped with it, Common said he hopes that his revelation will help other victims of molestation. The 47-year-old Oscar winner wants others to feel safe talking about it so they can begin the healing process.
For Common, he's coping with his haunting experience thanks to therapy, something that he's still dealing with to this day.
“I just pushed the whole thing out of my head,” he writes. “Maybe it’s a matter of survival—Even now, two years after that flash resurgence of memories, as I’m writing, I’m still working through all of this in myself and with my therapist.”
You can cop Common's memoir, Let Love Have the Last Word: A Memoir, at Amazon.com.
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