Quoted: Queen Latifah on Sexual Abuse
Excerpted by Latoya Peterson
For a short period of time when she was a child, Latifah was the victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a teenager charged with her care. “He violated me,” she says of the abuser. “I never told anybody; I just buried it as deeply as I could and kept people at an arm’s distance. I never really let a person get too close to me. I could have been married years ago, but I had a commitment issue.” Eventually, she opened up to her parents, who separated when she was young. “When I was 22, my brother died, and I knew I couldn’t carry his death and that secret,” she says. “I had to get it off my chest. My mother felt terrible. She was kind of a country girl, so she wasn’t up on how slick people could be. When I told my dad, he said nothing.” Latifah says now that it was scary when her father didn’t respond. “He’s a man of action,” she says.
But Latifah doesn’t blame her parents for what occurred. In fact, she credits them with doing their best to protect her while she was growing up. She points out that one in four girls is sexually abused in some way. “That’s 25 percent of all girls. This is a real problem,” she says. Not unlike many victims of abuse, she wondered if she had played a role in what happened. Her talks with a therapist helped her find the unequivocal answer. “He said, ‘Imagine yourself as an adult and think about what a child can do to you. Can they beat you? Can they defeat you? No. Now, imagine yourself as that child.’ That really helped put things in perspective. I was a kid, and I had no power or control over the situation. I really wish I had the strength and knowledge to say something sooner, because I always wondered, Did he do that to someone else? But I accept that the time for action has come and gone.
—From “I’m the One That They Call Queen,” Essence, July 2009 Issue
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
RMJ wrote:
I’ve long loved Queen Latifah for daring to be large, black and beautiful. She’s never allowed outside definition or the discrimination of others to hamper her success, and I love the fluidity of her professional identity. This brave and honest statement will help many. I admire her lack of shame. Speaking publically about abuse is an act of tremendous courage.
Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 12:22 pm ¶
c.n. edaw wrote:
The comments over at Essence disturbed me so much I was afraid to see what was said here. So far. So good.
I met Queen Latifah backstage at a concert once and I was struck by two things
1) she is not as large as the media campaign and her embodiment of that image would lead you to believe, or at least she wasnt at the time.
This was in the 90’s and she just looked like a lot of girls on your high school basketball team–taller than average, in good shape, but not skinny–just with much larger breasts, LOL!
I swear she could not have been bigger than a size 12…and I personally think she was about a 10.
2) She seemed almost shy.
Anyway, I am so glad she and other prominent black people are talking about abuse. Sexual abuse, physical abuse, etc.
For years I would hear stories about abuse on the news only to have some black person–usually older–remark, ” at least WE don’t do stuff like that to OUR kids.”
I think one of the worst stereotypes about white men is that only they are/can be pedophiles which couldn’t be further from the truth. Or that incest only happens in poor white rural families.
Despite the fact that most rapes are intraracial, most domestic abuse occurs within same race marriages, and most pregnant 12 year old black girls don’t get knocked up by 12 year old boys the black community has too often perpetuated the myth that abuse, especially sexual, is not a big problem in our communities.
As much as I dislike Monique for other reasons I am glad she, Like Latifah, and others are speaking up. It’s about time.
Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 1:31 pm ¶
PPR_Scribe wrote:
I have such a hate-love relationship with Essence. But this is an issue that I will probably buy. Kudos to Dana for speaking out about being an abuse survivor.
Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 2:30 pm ¶
gogojojo wrote:
well now i’m going to have to get an issue of essence.
Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 2:45 pm ¶
Myles wrote:
Yeah, I think the fact that she is talking about it in public is a pretty big form of action. And I really like the fact that also stated that she has talked to a therapist. Hopefully people who read the article will feel encoraged by her story to seek help.
Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 2:52 pm ¶
Orville wrote:
I think it’s sad that Queen Latifah was a victim of child abuse. However, why doesn’t Essence ask the tough questions for instance why doesn’t Queen Latfiah admit she is a lesbian and has a black Canadian lesbian lover?
Mod Note –
1. We’re not in the business of outing celebrities. If they choose to come out, they do so on their own time.
2. Essence notes that Queen Latifah does not under any circumstances talk about her personal relationships. She actually does address the questions about her sexuality in the interview, but more to emphatically explain it is her business and hers alone. – LDP
Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 4:54 pm ¶
c.n. edaw wrote:
PPR_Scribe wrote:
“I have such a hate-love relationship with Essence. ”
Not to hijack–but why is that true of so many people? I had a subscription and then refused to buy it for 5 years. Then someone gifted me. Read it awhile, got pissed and cancelled it again. Now I just occasionally look at it online or at the beauty salon.
Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 6:20 pm ¶
MizDezigner wrote:
Essence gets me with some of their articles…I don’t love it nor hate it but I definitely would like to read Queen Latifah’s full article.
Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 9:41 pm ¶
m. wrote:
@Orville:
It’s always pretty great when people with exposure come out as queer or trans (the LGBTQ people of color could use some more famous Q/TWoC to look up to, there’s always a lot of excited, “I told you so’s!”, etc.), but it’s also pretty great when any publication lays off “the tough questions”. Privacy is a right, not a privilege. As far as I know, the mod is correct: Latifah always has been pretty hush-hush when it comes to her personal life. I don’t think it has anything to do with being “closeted”, straight, bi, whathaveyou. There’d be a shitstorm surrounding it, just like when a certain white actress made comments in The Advocate that people read as an admission that Michelle Rodriguez is, uh, something she hasn’t claimed to be. Saying.
Anyway, Queen Latifah looks amazing, as usual.
Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 11:50 pm ¶
Pheagan wrote:
God I love her. Not because of this, but in general. But also because of this.
I remember, I used to think– it doesn’t help. I mean, it happened to me. Not to be TMI. But it did. And it was my father. And when I was younger, I didn’t have a problem with it. I was so strong, and I saw all these psychological studies that told me I was gonna be fucked up, and I was like, not me. Fuck that. I have no reason to be ashamed, why should I be fucked up?
And I saw Tori Amos and Fiona Apple kind of making an issue of coming out about it and I was like, how is that brave? It’s just saying what happened. It doesn’t help me. I’m not ashamed to being with, how does that help me? Because it seemed like they always thought it would help someone in some obscure way I didn’t get.
But then it did become an issue for me. People I told, treated me like I was broken. And other things happened. I’ve had a lot of men try things that shouldn’t have been tried. I’ve been attacked, way too many times. And I felt like my father had poisoned me, had given me this perfume that predators homed in on. Or alternately, that I had been told so much that I was broken that it finally broke me.
It’s something I’m still dealing with. I’ve never been raped but I think about it so much because it’s all tied together for me. And I stopped talking to people about it. And that is a choice, too, btw. Not a weak one. You’ve gotta protect your interests. If you want your boyfriend to treat you like a strong, competent person instead of a broken doll, you have to act accordingly. You have to lie yourself into being.
But it was in my silence that I finally understood. The public coming out. The “this is a real problem” thing. And also the fact that you look at someone like Latifah, who is a fucking goddess, and you can be like, it happened to her. And she’s not broken. So maybe it’s not fate. Maybe I can be who I want. So thank you.
Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 5:02 am ¶
RCHOUDH wrote:
It is very admirable of Queen Latifah to bring this important issue to light. And she’s one of the few celebrities out there today who can actually believed to be multitalented.
Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 9:02 am ¶
aimerrouge wrote:
IN RE: My Relationship with Essence Magazine
“Not to hijack–but why is that true of so many people?”
I left Essence after Susan Taylor was no longer editor in chief. It just got to the point where there were too many “Me and the Minister Are Involved.” The Minister was supposed to be married, celibate, or at very least in a committed relationship with the women feature in the article. There were few articles about health, diet and exercise that interested me. Nothing about personal finance. The fashion featured clothes I couldn’t afford or wouldn ‘t wear. No makeup tips. I wasn’t a fan of the books they featured. Mary J. Blige was on the cover every other month. Essence was targeted at black women, but not this black woman. So I stopped reading it.
Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 11:13 am ¶
allheavens wrote:
Young girls and women being sexually molested is an issue that boggles the mind because of the shear numbers being assaulted.
Kudos to Queen for letting it be known that molestation is not the end of your life but a different and powerful journey.
Our landlord molested me when I was 13. It was the summer, I was home alone and he was supposedly checking on some repairs done to the house earlier that week.
First, he tried to sweet talk me, that didn’t work. Then he just grabbed me, forcibly fondle me, I struggled, he continued to grab at various body parts, I freed myself from his grip, ran into the kitchen, pulled a frozen roast out of the freezer and threaten him with imminent death or at least a fractured skull if he ever dared come near me again. I thank God that he gave up and left. I never allowed myself to be alone with him again.
Unfortunately, I never told anyone either, not my mother, not my father, not my sister, not my grandparents, not my husband years later, no one until today.
In those days I don’t think anyone would have believed me, this was 43 years ago. And if I had told I don’t think anything would have be done about it. He had not raped me, he had not beaten me, so there was no physical evidence of the assault and it would have been my word against his. But bottom line, I was a 13-year-old Black girl, living in Texas in 1966.
I have always wondered if he had molested his daughter or if he had molested any other little girls. He died many years ago but I still wonder; I wonder if my silence caused harm to another child.
“A girl child ain’t safe in a family of mens” – Sophia, The Color Purple
Change that to “in a world of men” and truer words have never been spoken.
Posted 24 Jun 2009 at 2:41 pm ¶
ashlynn wrote:
As I’ve reflected over the years, I’m starting to realize that that 25 percent may be even higher. I was never outright molested or assaulted as a young child, but I can’t help but to think of the occasions on the playground where the older boys would try their hand with the younger girls. It’s very unsettling, how inappropriate sexual contact can be masked as a simple game of tag, and how years later, some will still find it so and others won’t even bat an eye. Hell, some might even glorify it(this is why I strongly believe in sexual education very early on).
However, I was assaulted when I was in middle school, and it still affects me deeply today. A fellow student had followed me into a classroom after school, locked the door and attacked me. When I managed to break out of the classroom, there was a group of students there laughing at me, as if it were some joke, or I was just that type of girl. I don’t believe there are any words in the English language to describe how I felt, and still feel today. I kept completely silent up until last year: I wasn’t liked much in middle school, and my mother and I pretty much at war, so I didn’t feel the least bit safe in confiding in anyone. Unfortunately, when I finally blurted it out in a heated argument, she said, “Oh really?” I was shattered because in all my 17 years I had known that an “Oh really” from her meant, “Bullshit.” I have to physically stop everything if I begin to think about this moment, because I honestly die just a bit more when I have to relive it, and so I need to reassemble myself, so to speak. Being attacked completely altered me. I am horribly paranoid, not very confident, and haven’t been legitimately able to even entertain much of a dating life because I just do not know what to do with myself. And in learning of the many friends who have gone through the same things, the sheer numbers- it can truly knock you off your feet. But, much like the Queen herself, I am making my peace, piece by piece, hoping to impart some much needed experience on someone else someday.
Posted 25 Jun 2009 at 4:25 am ¶