Rosie O’Donnell opens up about the painful experience of being sexually abused by her father in her new book.
In “Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of ‘The View,’” Rosie says the abuse began when she was “very young” and it continued until she was 10-years-old.
Rosie says her father stopped abusing her after her mother passed away.
And then when my mother died, it sort of ended in a weird way, because then he was with these five children to take care of.
On the whole, it’s not something I like to talk about. Of course, it changes everyone. Any child who is put in that position, especially by someone in the family, you feel completely powerless and stuck, because the person you would tell is the person doing it.
Her father, Edward Joseph O’Donnell, died from cancer in 2015. He was 81.
Rosie O’Donnell has always been vocal about her strained and difficult relationship with her father, but this is the first time she ever detailed the abuse.
In a 2012 interview with Piers Morgan, she said:
He had his own issues and demons. You get to be 50 years old, you can’t still be angry at what your father did in 1970.
I have forgiven him.
“Ladies Who Punch” will be released on April 2.
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