Ricki Lake has battled weight problems for years.
Now, in an interview with Access Hollywood, the actress and former talk show host reveals a possible reason why: "I was a victim of childhood sexual abuse and I think it contributed. Who knows for sure?"
"I've done many years in therapy and worked on all my issues. I didn't talk about it for, like, 15 or 20 years; I didn't admit that it had happened to me because I wanted to kind of bury things. It, in some way, made me who I am today."
You've gotta admire Lake for speaking out on such a difficult issue.
"I don't want to be a poster child for this at all but it's very weird thing for children when they're violated in that way. Food became a comfort to me; it was my kind of security blanket."
Ricki Lake hopes to help other women in her situation.
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1 Comment
September 14th, 2009 1:18 AM
Hi Ricki, I can so totally relate to your pain, I too was also sexually abused at the tender age of 6, right thru my teenage years by a family member and was never able to open up/talk to anyone about the abuse until I was 45 . I had to carry that heavy weight all alone for 50 years, which as a result has destroyed me in many areas of my life. I basically felt I failed in every area of my life when I look back now at my life at the time I had no idea what was happening to me and why my life was so corrupted/messed up. Victims like us use different outlets to cope with their pain until they open up and start the healing process, my outlet was shopping, I've shopped so much over the years to fill he void/cope with the pain until I am now applying for bankruptcy (it was that bad)... I shopped for 22 years, prior to that, I used promiscuity in my earlier years, and when I finally woke up one day when at 50 yrs, I started to realize what has been happening to me all of my life, and why, I went through all kinds of pain and emotions. Someone who has never experience this type of abuse themselves will never really understand or could relate to what we are saying or to understand our pain. I could go on and on, but just wanted to acknowledge your situation and share a bit of my own story. When I forst saw you on TV, you were very heavy (about 15 to 20 years ago)I said to myself something does not add up here...this young, beautiful, intelligent lady with her own talk-show carrying all this weight, something is definitely wrong here and because I was over weight myself all of my life but did not understand why at the time I was not sure if it was the abuse that caused your obesity, however that was the first thing that crossed my mind though, all because I was overweight myself, all of my life. No one else in my family is/was obese, only me but I never understood why, now slowly but surely after 50 years I am now beginning to put the pieces of my life together, at 53 now, there is only so much you can do. A lot of life's choices/opportunities, growth has already passed you, pretty soon it's retirement time. So people do not really understands how this type of abuse especially, takes away your entire life and makes you depressed which leads to suicide thoughts, I was/had suicidal thoughts many times in my life, all because nothing in my life made sense to me for all those years.
I am sure that you are doing better now, I saw you on Everybody Loves Raymond Show, you have lost a lot of weigh, you look great!!! Hope that photo is after the weight loss and not a photo before you had put the weight on.
Nice chatting!
Many a times I feel as thought it would be healing for me to work in some Shelter for Abused Women or some sort of charity work where in this area.
Take care
Anonymous