…And lived to sing the tale.
By Frank Donovan
Many artists come from difficult backgrounds: physical, verbal, and sexual abuse, freak accidents, illnesses, among other trials and tribulations. We’ve assembled 12 such musicians who rose up from the lowest of lows in their youth to create the music in adulthood that we all know and love. Let’s take a moment to recognize and appreciate their tenacity and openness in addition to their musical talents.
Michael Jackson
IMdB
It’s no secret by now that MJ’s father Joe Jackson was verbally and physically abusive to his kids. Jackson went into detail on several occasions, including in the famous BBC special with Martin Bashir.
Brian Wilson
Commons
Similarly to MJ, The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson suffered verbal and physical abuse at the hands of his father Murry Wilson. Wilson offers detailed accounts in his autobiography Wouldn’t It Be Nice, not to mention first-hand evidence in the audio of the Help Me Rhonda sessions.
50 Cent
hiphopdx.com
When 50 Cent was just 8 years old, his mother was murdered. He was from then on raised by his grandparents.
Christina Aguilera
goalcast.com
Aguilera and her mother were both abused by her father until they managed to leave for a new life in Pennsylvania when Aguilera was 6 years old. Her song “I’m Ok” alludes to the pain he caused.
Nicki Minaj
the list.com
Nicki Minaj’s father abused drugs and alcohol and once set their house on fire while her mother was inside.
Eric Clapton
cbspressexpress
The first of several traumas in Clapton’s life came when Clapton was 9 years old and learned that the woman he thought was his sister was actually his mother. She had already remarried and had other children, and continued to play a sisterly role in his life.
Axl Rose
Facebook
In addition to witnessing abuse of his mom, Axl Rose was sexually abused by his own father at age 2. “I…picked up a lot of distorted views that I’ve had to live my life with,” he told Rolling Stone in 2012.
Mary J Blige
hiphopdx.com
At age 5, Blige was molested by a family friend. She’s said the trauma followed her all her life and led to alcohol and drug abuse as a teen.
Ray Charles
the grunge.com
Charles had an incredibly traumatic childhood. At age 5 he witnessed his own brother’s death by drowning, and went blind the following year.
Ringo Starr
Commons
Ringo was a sickly child, in and out of the hospital for various afflictions for a cumulative 2 years. After one 6-month stint, he reached down to the floor to show a friend a toy bus he’d gotten for his birthday. He fell from the bed and ripped open all the stitches from surgery, forcing him to remain in the hospital another 6 months. After age 13 he never went back to school.
Tom Petty
the sun.co.uk
Petty was beaten and verbally abused by his dad who wasn’t exactly understanding of his son’s interest in the arts, and preferred to take him on hunting trips. Petty has said he continues to have nightmares about father.
Fiona Apple
Spin.com
Read any interview …and you know she’s a tortured soul. She was raped at age 12, which she’s said has contributed to her self-loathing and an eating disorder. VH1.com
Even in our supposedly ‘enlightened’ times, there remains a mentality out there, albeit perhaps subconscious: Men can take care of themselves against sexual perpetrators, and boys are basically little men.
I’ve noticed over many years of (mostly Canadian) news-media consumption that when the victims are girls their gender is readily reported as such; however, when they’re boys, they’re usually referred to gender-neutrally as children. It’s as though, as a news product made to sell the best, the child victims being female is somehow more shocking than if male.
Also, I’ve heard and read news-media references to a 19-year-old female victim as a ‘girl’, while (in an unrelated case) a 17 year old male perpetrator was described as a ‘man’.
I wonder whether the above may help explain why the book Childhood Disrupted (about adverse childhood experiences or ACEs) was only able to include one man among its six interviewed adult subjects, logically presuming there were very few men willing to come forward for the book? Could it be evidence of a continuing subtle societal take-it-like-a-man mindset?
After all, that relatively so few men (a ratio of 5:1 female to male) suffered high-scoring ACE trauma is not a plausible conclusion, however low in formally recorded number they may be. For me at least, it definitely was the book’s unaddressed florescent elephant in the room.
(I tried contacting the book’s author on this matter, twice, but received no reply.)
Thank you “fgsjr” for stopping by and commenting. I find the world enlightened with evil. A dark twist on intelligence and not of a keen, sound mind. The darkness in the world has brought about a lot of obscurities which are the reasons for many sexual assaults and violations. I deeply feel that the more articles man has (worldly things), the more he loses touch with God and
himself. Thank you for sharing so many interesting facts about gender analysis and those who suffer from having traumatic experiences as children. I will definitely check out the author and the read! Cheers! 🍮🍂🍮🔔🍮🍂🍮🙏