Gabriel Byrne: I Was Sexually Abused By A Priest

You're in the spotlight. Admired by millions. Will revealing a painful history of childhood sexual abuse help others deal with their own? Considering the growing numbers of celebrities who have spoken out, seems like the consensus is yes. And actor Gabriel Byrne (The Usual Suspects, Stigmata) is the latest, recently revealing to an Irish television show that he was molested at 11 when serving as an altar boy at seminary. How To Know When Sex Is Not Consensual

Unfortunately, I experienced some sexual abuse. 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."

Again, I didn't think it severely impacted me at the time. 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." Source: Huffington Post

Now 59, Byrne said that he stayed at seminary for four-and-a-half years — from age 11 to 15 — before concluding that he "preferred women to priesthood."

Here are five other brave celebrities who spoke out about their sexual abuse as children:

1. Tyler Perry. Perhaps the directorial giant put so much weight behind Precious — a movie about a 16-year-old girl from Harlem who is emotionally and physically abused by her parents — because he himself was abused. As recounted in 2006, one night, when his mother was gone, his drunken father "got the vacuum cleaner extension cord and trapped me in a room and beat me until the skin was coming off my back." He was also sexually molested by his mother's friend. In October 2008, Perry told Ebony magazine: 

I tell people, if you're thinking about suicide, all that stuff I've attempted and thought about it. If you think about it, life gets better. The key to life when it gets tough is to keep moving. Just keep moving."