Common Reveals Childhood Sexual Assault

    Hip hop artist Common poses for portraits  during the Academy Awards annual nominees luncheon for the 90th Oscars at the Beverly Hilton, California on February 5, 2018, in Beverly Hills, California. / AFP PHOTO / VALERIE MACON        (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images)
    Hip hop artist Common poses for portraits during the Academy Awards annual nominees luncheon for the 90th Oscars at the Beverly Hilton, California on February 5, 2018, in Beverly Hills, California. / AFP PHOTO / VALERIE MACON (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images)

    In his memoir Let Love Have the Last Word, rapper Common reveals that he was sexually assaulted as a child.

    “I pushed him away,” he wrote about an incident when he was 9 or 10 years old. “I don’t remember saying a whole lot besides ‘No, no, no,’ I felt a deep and sudden shame for what happened.”

    Common said he “buried” the assault (the perpetrator was a non-family member) until only a few years ago.

    “It was something that I didn’t know if I wanted to talk about,” he explained during an appearance on Tuesday’s episode of Good Morning America, “but I really believe that in telling my story other people will be OK with talking about that situation.

    “And me, I’m a black man, we don’t talk about those issues in ways that we could. So I felt I wanted to create a space for people who have experienced that to be able to share that. That’s part of the healing, to be honest.”

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