Gabriel Byrne reveals childhood sexual abuse
Gabriel Byrne reveals childhood sexual abuse
Also In The News
|
By Matt Hallam. |  |
Wednesday, 20, Jan 2010 09:29
By Lewis Bazley.
Actor Gabriel Byrne has revealed he was molested as an 11-year-old while training to be a priest.
The Usual Suspects star confirmed the childhood abuse to Irish talkshow host Gay Byrne on RTE television on Tuesday.
In a revealing interview on The Meaning Of Life, Gabriel Byrne, 59, said he was abused in a Christian Brothers school in his native Ireland.
"Unfortunately, I experienced some sexual abuse," he told Gay Byrne. "It was a known and admitted fact of life amongst us that there was this particular man, and you didn't want to be left in the dressing room with him.
"There were certain boundaries, sexual boundaries, that were crossed... I didn't feel that I suffered at the time... It took many years to come to terms with it and to forgive those incidents that I felt had deeply hurt me."
The Miller's Crossing actor was sexually abused by another priest after moving to study in an English seminary as an 11-year-old.
"Again, I didn't think it severely impacted me at the time," he added. "But I suppose when I think about my later life, and how I had difficulties with certain issues, there is the real possibility they could have been attributable to that."
Byrne, who has recently starred as a therapist in the acclaimed drama In Treatment, said he left the priesthood after four-and-a-half years of study having discovered women.
The actor also spoke openly about his battles with alcoholism and expressed his concern at alcohol consumption in Ireland.
"I think we have a huge problem in this country with alcohol and depression. They are often intertwined," Byrne said.
"There is this plague of binge drinking, where the idea is to get as out of it as you possibly can, as quick as you can. That's alcoholism: part of the disease is to remove yourself from reality as quickly as possible."