Latifah: 'I Was Abused'

Queen Latifah has revealed she was sexually abused as a child by a male charged with her care. "He violated me," the actress singer said in an interview in Essence magazine. "I never told anybody; I just buried it as deeply as I could and kept people at an arm's distance." The Grammy and Golden Globe winner said the secret abuse hurt her relationships with people.

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"I never really let a person get too close to me. I could have been married years ago, but I had a commitment issue," she said. She finally opened up to her parents at the age of 22. "My mother felt terrible. She was kind of a country girl, so she wasn't up on how slick people could be," said Latifah.
(Read more sexual abuse stories.)