Gloria Estefan Reveals She Was Sexually Abused by Family Member When She Was A Child

Gloria Estefan is bravely opening up about her past trauma.

During the latest episode of her online talk show, Red Table Talk: The Estefans, the 64-year-old singer revealed publicly for the first time that was sexually abused by a family member when she was 9-years-old.

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“Ninety-three percent of abused children know and trust their abusers. And I know this because I was one of them,” Gloria shared in the episode, which aired on Thursday (September 30).

Gloria went on to reveal that the abuse started when she was attending a music school taught by a distant relative, someone her mother “trusted.”

“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,” Gloria recalled.

“He put it in a way of, ‘Oh, you’re so good at this, and let me teach you whatever,’” she continued. “And then, it starts little by little and then it goes fast.”

“I revolted and I told him, ‘This cannot happen, you cannot do this,’ and he goes, ‘Your father’s in Vietnam, your mother’s alone, and I will kill her if you tell her,’” Gloria said. “And I knew he 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.”

After running out of excuses to avoid going to the music class, Gloria decided to speak up and tell her mother.

“I couldn’t take it anymore. I told her about it and the police came and she said, ‘This is what’s happening.’ And they told my mother not to press charges because they said I was going to go through worse trauma having to get on a stand and testify,” Gloria said, getting emotional. “And that’s the one thing that I feel bad about, knowing that there must have been other victims.”

Gloria concluded, “I wanted to deal with this subject matter because it is so important to try to prevent. I knew one day I would share this story. I was waiting for the right opportunity and space to do so. And this is one of the reasons I said yes to the table at all. Because we wanted to create this space where we talk about important things and hopefully it will make a difference to everybody that’s watching out there.”