Country singer Lindsay Ell has revealed that she was raped twice, once at 13 years old and once at 21.
Ell, 31, told People that the first assault was allegedly committed by a man in her church, who groomed her before raping her. She said she finally felt able to confide in her parents about it when she was 20 years old.
“They had no idea it happened, and they were absolutely horrified,” she said. “I’m so grateful towards both of them because they helped me not go into any unhealthy mechanisms to cope.”
She then started going to therapy to help her cope, but says she was was raped again in a “different” and a “lot more violent” attack at 21 years old. She started suffering from depression and anxiety as a result.
“I was pretty messed up emotionally,” she said. “I had a weird relationship with anything about the body because I just hadn’t felt safe.”
Ell’s sings about the first incident in her new ballad, “make you.”
“Thirteen, starin’ in the mirror/You still look so innocent/But that was all gone yesterday/At eighteen, you see it a little clearer/Somethin’ that was taken/Before you could give it away,” she sings in the beginning of the track. “And you feel dirty, you feel guilty/For what was done to you/There’ll be a canyon in your chest/For what you can’t undo.”
She continues, “It’s gonna make you hate yourself / When you didn’t hate yourself at all / It’s gonna make you build a fortress / Where you never had a wall.”
Ell told People she finally felt ready to talk about her experiences when she visited Youth for Tomorrow, an organization that helps young victims of sexual abuse.
“I felt so alone for so long, like ‘This only happened to me.’ But it’s not true,” she said. “If I would’ve known that when I was 13, I would have felt such a deep feeling of relief.”
She added, “Part of me talking about it now is liberating the little 13-year-old Lindsay and the 21-year-old Lindsay. Pain is something we can let control us if we don’t deal with it, but the minute you put a voice to your story the shame has no power.”
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