Getty Clare Crawley of The Bachelorette.
Clare Crawley opened up about her experience with sexual abuse as a child.
During an interview on “Red Table Talk: The Estefans,” the former “Bachelorette” star revealed that a counselor at the Catholic school she attended sexually molested her.
“I don’t think there was any counseling that was done,” Crawley said of the school employee. “It was a one-on-one time to be a predator.”
Crawley Revealed That She Was Molested By a Priest When She Was in School
In the interview, Crawley revealed to “Red Table Talk” hosts Gloria, Emily, and Lili Estefan that the abusive “counselor” was also a priest.
“I grew up going to a Catholic school and I was the victim of a predator,” the Sacramento native said in the interview, per Us Weekly. “My parents looked at Catholic priests as — they held them on a pedestal.”
She added that religion was “very deep” in her family’s roots and that her parents “did the best they could and reached out for the resources they could at the time and sent me to this priest.”
Crawley, who held on to her secret for years, also said that predators “bank” on their victims staying “silent.”
“These predators bank on us not saying anything and not opening our mouth and that gives them that power,” she said in the interview, per Hollywood Life. “And that’s why after 39 years, instead of letting it affect me negatively I thought, how do I take the power back? Because for so long the weight I was carrying was unworthiness, embarrassment, feeling not worthy of the church standing up for me. And now I thought, you know what, this is not my burden to carry anymore.”
Crawley added that instead of carrying shame, what she recently decided to carry was “being a survivor.”
Crawley Has Said the Past Abuse She Suffered Caused Her to Remain in Unhealthy Relationships
In an Instagram post shared earlier this year, Crawley revealed that as a child of sexual abuse, her “young adult years were spent in unhealthy relationships feeling unworthy of the good ones.” She admitted that she never felt that she was good enough for the men in her life.
Even on ‘The Bachelor,” viewers saw the leading man – Juan Pablo Galavis – disrespect Crawley. According to the Sun, Galavais whispered an obscene comment in Crawley’s ear after one of their dates.
“I’m shocked,” Crawly said at the time. “He chose to tell me something that no woman wants to hear. That he doesn’t know me and some sexual thing I don’t want to repeat.”
Crawley famously told Galavis off on the season finale of his season of the ABC dating show, per E! News.
In 2020, Crawley appeared on the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast and revealed that she had just gotten out of a “really, really abusive relationship” before she appeared as a contestant on Galavis’ season of “The Bachelor” in 2014.
She also opened up about breaking free from the shame of childhood sexual abuse as an adult.
“It’s been something that I’ve hidden for so many years, but until I’ve owned that part of my life and looked at the stuff I’ve been through not as shame, but to look at it as my superpower, and these are the things that have made the woman that I am today,” she said.
While she hid her childhood traumas for years, Crawley said she now yearns for someone to “love” her for all of “the hard stuff” that she has been through.
Crawley’s ‘Red Table Talk” tell-all comes amid rumors that she recently split from her “Bachelorette” fiance, Dale Moss.
If you have been a victim of sexual abuse or know someone who needs help, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE or visit rainn.org.
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