X Men actor Sir Patrick Stewart shares his domestic violence story and urges victims to seek help
In an emotional reveal, 'X-Men' actor Sir Patrick Stewart opened up about how he had endured domestic abuse from his father as he was growing up as a child and urged people who face the problem to ask for help.
Speaking on the ITV afternoon show 'Loose Women' on Thursday, the actor said that acting helped him deal with the grief. "I had a reason to be out of the house in the evenings when often problems would occur. Unlike my time, there is aid available now. There are 24-hour helplines. Women’s Aid is one of the organizations that has a helpline. Call the helpline, you need not be alone."
He also revealed that his father was a veteran who was suffering from PTSD. "My brother and I lived with my mother and her sister across the road, we were treated so well. Suddenly there was this big, hairy man in the house. Increasingly things became more and more difficult. What I only learned about a few years ago was that he had suffered what the newspapers described as severe shell shock. Of course, he was never treated for it – what we now call PTSD," he said.
He added that though he was ill, it was no excuse for the way he treated them. "That does not justify what he did, not remotely. He was a weekend alcoholic and it was partly brought about because of his transformation from Regimental Sergeant Major to basically a semi-skilled laborer with no authority at all. I realize now [this] must have been very painful for him."
Sir Patrick, who is a legend in the acting community, described how he and his brother had to often physically stop their father. He said that he would come home drunk from the bar and raise his hands on their mother and the two boys would try to get in between them so that he wouldn't hurt her more.
"At those moments we would go in, we would just try and put our bodies between our mother and our father,"said the 77 year old before adding, "One of the problems of domestic violence is that shame attached to it – for everybody, for the victim and the abuser and the children, too."