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Joshua Bassett Reveals He Was Sexually Abused 'A Lot' as a Child

Joshua Bassett Reveals He Was Sexually Abused 'A Lot' as a Child

Joshua Bassett is getting candid about his past.

The 20-year-old star opened up in an interview with GQ.

During the interview, he revealed that he left his West Village apartment and now lives “nowhere,” reading self-help books and working on journaling and in therapy.

Click inside to read more…

“I experienced sexual abuse a lot in my childhood,” he said while tearing up in the interview.

“I didn’t remember that until last year, which is pretty insane. I buried it so far. And when I was a teen, a much older man routinely abused me, and I wasn’t able to see it for what it was at the time,” he continued.

His new song “Set Me Free” is partly about processing the experience, which he called “an anthem for me and the sort of people who’ve held pain and power over me my whole life…you’ve taken so much from me, but you don’t get to take all of me.”

He also said he plans to discuss this further on an episode of a podcast series dedicated to “heavy talks” that he says will launch in 2022, which will “hopefully help people who are experiencing that” and that he wants it to be “the podcast that I wish I had when I was a kid.”

He added that he is “so much stronger than I was before,” but is still wary about public life.

“I got a protector screen on my phone so people can’t look at it when I’m at a coffee shop. There are certain people who I can’t hang out with in public because they’re too loud…I feel like a lot of this last year people haven’t seen me as a human being.”

For more from Joshua Bassett, head to GQ.com.

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Photos: Getty Images
Posted to: Joshua Bassett