The brother of Oscar-winning actress Mo'Nique admitted to Oprah Winfrey on Monday that he repeatedly molested his little sister starting when she was only 7 years old.
Mo'Nique, who won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, has spoken publicly about the abuse at the hands of Gerald Imes, saying she channeled "that monster" when she played the brutal mother in the film.
"I'm sorry, Mo'Nique. I'm sorry," Imes said Monday on The Oprah Winfrey Show. "I betrayed everybody's trust. I broke that trust. I broke that bond." Mo'Nique declined to be involved in Imes's interview or respond to his apology.
Imes blamed the sexual abuse, which happened over a period of two years mostly while Imes believed Mo'Nique was sleeping, on the fact that he too had been molested and was masking his pain with drugs.
"I started using cocaine, heroin, alcohol at the age of 11," he told Winfrey. "I used these drugs to hide my own pain, to hide my own fears ... The drugs allowed me and afforded me the opportunity to hurt my sister."
He said he hid the shame he felt at having been sexually abused himself and took it out on his sister, who is now 42.
Imes was later sentenced to 12 years in prison for molesting another girl. But now he wants to repair his relationship with his sister and move forward.
"I can only hope by coming forth today ... that somewhere down the line … we can come back together as siblings," he said. "I understand your pain. I truly think, let's share this together and move on."
Former CNN Headline News anchor Thomas Roberts, currently host of The Advocate’s new television newsmagazine, has bravely spoken out in the past about the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a priest at his Catholic high school.
Thomas spoke with http://www.gq.com/ The Wire about the Catholic Church and its handling of the abuse scandals that envelope it. Here are some excerpts:
What would you ask Pope Benedict if you had a chance to sit down with him?
I think I would ask why a man in his position doesn’t feel a greater sense of compassion for the victims…why he doesn’t just be like, The buck stops here. This is unacceptable. People are watching and do care about how [the Church] reacts, so I’d think they’d want to act with more swift justice so they can provide the confidence people need to still want to be Catholic.
One of many excuses the Vatican gave in the case of the priest who molested 200 deaf boys was that the incidents exceeded the church’s statute of limitations. As someone who waited almost 20 years to come forward, how do you feel about this? Were you in denial?
Oh, I was in complete denial. I considered myself to be a strong and intelligent person, and to place yourself in the “victim” category is very hard to do. I thought that I had been able to deal with what life had dealt me. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I’m happy that I was able to confront these demons that had been chasing me for a really long time and extinguish them.
So you came out to your family when you were 27. Later, when you were 33 you began opening up about the abuse. Some people see a casual relationship between abuse and sexuality. Did you worry that people would try and draw those lines?
For me these are two very separate, distinct issues, and I don’t want them to ever be confused. No one ever asks a woman who was abused as a young girl if she grew up and decided she was straight. I had the complete love and support of my family though, and that was most important thing.
The brother of Oscar-winning actress Mo'Nique admitted to Oprah Winfrey on Monday that he repeatedly molested his little sister starting when she was only 7 years old.
