ABC Hannah Brown.
Hannah Brown’s new book, ”God Bless This Mess,” details the story of “The Bachelorette” star turned “Dancing with the Stars’ champ, but there’s much more to it than her dating and dancing on ABC.
According to a book description shared by People, Hannah’s book addresses “the most challenging moments of her life,” including “a shocking family tragedy” that took place when the 27-year-old former pageant queen was just six-years-old.
Hannah Brown Went Into Detail About a Family Tragedy That Took Place 20 Years Ago
In an excerpt from the book shared by E! News, Hannah revealed that in May 2001, her Aunt LeeLee and her two young cousins, Kent, 4, and Robin, 6, were murdered in their small town Alabama home.
Hannah revealed that her mother broke the news to her by telling her that her Aunt and cousins “are now your angels in heaven” after “a bad man came to their house and hurt them.”
The future “Bachelorette” star wrote that she had an especially hard time wrapping her head around the tragedy because her cousin Robin was the same age as her. She also revealed that her parents ”didn’t believe in therapy,” so she was left to deal with the tragedy on her own. She credited her faith with helping her get through, but revealed she still has bad dreams and trouble sleeping more than 20 years later.
“When my mom told us that somebody had come into their house and ‘hurt them,’ it terrified me in the deepest parts of my heart,” Hannah wrote in her book. “I didn’t know the whole story with all the details until years later, but coming that close to something so awful, so terrifying—it was a turning point for me. … It changed everything. I was no longer living in the innocence of an untouched childhood.”
Hannah also questioned if the narcolepsy that she suffers from today is “a direct symptom of the trauma of the murder itself.”
Hannah revealed that she began seeing a therapist in her 20s.
Hannah Brown Said it Was Freeing to Be Able to Finally Talk About Her Family Tragedy
In the book, Hannah revealed that up until now, very few people knew about the family tragedy that took place in 2001.
“I’ve sometimes hinted at, with sneaky comments and stuff, ‘There’s been some hard things in my life that I’ve never talked about,’” she told Bustle.
She even noted that she suppressed the traumatic story for a long time, but did bring it up to producers when she was filming “The Bachelor” in 2018. Producers for the ABC dating franchise opted not to air her story about her murdered family members. Instead, she used her book-writing process to get her family to open up about the tragedy.
“It was really beautiful and healing to be able to finally feel free to talk about it with my own family,” she told the outlet. “Because if you can’t talk about it and feel free and safe to talk about it with your own family, how is it going to feel safe to talk about it to millions of people? So in a way, I’m really grateful [that story didn’t air].”
Just ahead of her book’s release, Hannah posted to Twitter to tell fans that she feels “excitement and peace all at once” now that she is finally able to share her story.
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