'Red Table Talk': Gloria Estefan, 'Bachelorette' Clare Crawley open up about being abused as children
Gloria Estefan and Clare Crawley revealed they were sexually abused as children by someone their families trusted.
Estefan spoke publicly for the first time about being molested at her music school at age 9 during an emotional episode of the Facebook Watch show "Red Table Talk: The Estefans," which aired Thursday.
"He was family, but not close family," the singer said. "He was in a position of power because my mother had put me in his music school and he immediately started telling her how talented I was and how I needed special attention, and she felt lucky that he was focusing this kind of attention on me."
Surrounded by her co-hosts, daughter Emily Estefan and niece Lili Estefan, the singer shared a statistic that "93% of abused children know and trust their abusers, and I know this because I was one of them.”
"You’ve waited for this moment a long time,” Lili told Estefan, who replied, "I have."
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Crawley, the first Latina "Bachelorette," also appeared on the episode, titled "Betrayed by Trusted Adults" and she revealed she was sexually abused by a Catholic priest as a child.
"My parents looked at Catholic priests as — they held them on a pedestal," Crawley said. "It is very deep in our roots."
Lili agreed that "the Catholic religion in the Mexican culture" holds a lot of influence. Estefan's daughter, Emily, added that priests "are supposed to be the purest, most trustworthy" figures.
"These predators bank on us being silent," Crawley said. "That gives them that power."
Estefan said her abuser threatened her family's safety
The Cuban-American superstar did not name her abuser but described how she tried to stop him. She said the abuse started little by little before moving fast, and that she knew that she was in a dangerous situation after confronting him.
“I told him, 'This cannot happen, you cannot do this.' He goes: 'Your father’s in Vietnam, your mother’s alone and I will kill her if you tell her,'" Estefan said. "And I knew it was crazy, because at no point did I ever think that it was because of me that this was happening. I knew the man was insane and that’s why I thought he might actually hurt my mother.”
Estefan said she started making up excuses to avoid going to music lessons. Her daughter Emily asked if her grandmother had any inkling something was going on. People didn’t talk about those things back then, Estefan replied.
"I couldn’t take it anymore," she said, so one night she ran to her mother’s bedroom at 3 a.m. and told her what was going on.
Her mother called the police, but the officers advised her not to press charges because the trauma of testifying would be too harmful.
She also said that, when her mother started inquiring about this man within the family, an aunt shared that he had abused her years back in Cuba.
Crawley said 'nobody talked about' abuse during her childhood
"The Bachelorette" star opened up being sexually abused by a Catholic priest as a child. Crawley, whose mother is of Mexican descent, said her parents "sent me to this priest" because the Catholic school she attended "treated him as a counselor."
"I don't think there was any counseling that was done," she said during the "Red Table Talk" episode. "It was a one-on-one time to be a predator."
Crawley told the Estefans she "never" told her family or her parents because "this was somebody who you respected, they can do no wrong. This was when you didn't hear about sexual abuse in the church. Nobody talked about it."
The TV personality added that she never spoke about what happened to her until she was in the fourth grade. "I randomly just shared it with one of my sisters … right then she went to my mom and dad."
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Crawley said self-love helped her heal
During the episode, both Crawley and Estefan said they didn’t like to be referred to as victims. Crawley called herself a survivor.
The 40-year-old first opened about being sexually abused as a child publicly on Instagram in late July.
In the social media post, she reflected on her "young adult years spent in unhealthy relationships (and) feeling unworthy of the good ones," adding it was a "vicious cycle" influenced by her childhood trauma.
"The more I chose the wrong men who treated me poorly, the more I believed I wasn't good enough," she wrote.
'My body is fighting them': Clare Crawley is removing breast implants for health reasons
The reality star added that her low self-worth led her to get breast implants, which "was money that would have been better spent on therapy to heal my wounded heart."
She continued: "I ended up spending the money on therapy anyway, cut to now. A woman who has learned to love herself deeply on the inside, knows her worth, and will fight for herself no matter what. I’ve learned the toxicity that these implants can cause on our bodies, as it has done to mine. So I am stepping away from something that no longer serves me… not my heart, and certainly not my health."
Over the Fourth of July weekend, Crawley announced she had her implants removed because her body was "fighting" them.
The Sacramento-born hairstylist was runner-up on Season 18 of ABC's "The Bachelor" and the lead of Season 16 of "The Bachelorette."
Contributing: Sigal Ratner-Arias, The Associated Press
If you are a survivor of sexual assault, RAINN offers support through the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800-656-HOPE and online.rainn.org).
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