NEW YORK ā Gloria Estefan has revealed that, at the age of 9, she was sexually abused by someone her mother trusted.
The Cuban-American superstar spoke for the first time publicly about the abuse and its effects on her during an episode of the Facebook Watch show āRed Table Talk: The Estefansā that aired Thursday.
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āHe was family, but not close family. He was in a position of power because my mother had put me in his music school and he immediately started telling her how talented I was and how I needed special attention, and she felt lucky that he was focusing this kind of attention on me,ā the singer said.
Estefan, who was born in Cuba and moved to Miami with her family when she was a toddler, revealed the abuse at the top of the show, which featured Clare Crawley, the first Latina āBachelorette.ā On the episode, called āBetrayed by Trusted Adults,ā Crawley talked about child abuse she experienced at the hands of a priest.
The Associated Press does not typically identify victims of sexual abuse unless they agree to be named or share their stories publicly.
Sitting at the round red table with her co-hosts ā daughter Emily Estefan and niece Lili Estefan ā Estefan opened by saying that ā93% of abused children know and trust their abusers, and I know this, because I was one of them.ā
āYouāve waited for this moment a long time,ā her niece told her.
āI have,ā Estefan replied.
The three held hands with teary eyes.
She did not name her abuser but described how she tried to stop him. She said the abuse started little by little before moving fast, and that she knew that she was in a dangerous situation after confronting him.
āI told him, āThis cannot happen, you cannot do this.ā He goes: āYour fatherās in Vietnam, your motherās alone and I will kill her if you tell her,āā Estefan said. āAnd I knew it was crazy, because at no point did I ever think that it was because of me that this was happening. I knew the man was insane and thatās why I thought he might actually hurt my mother.ā
Estefan said she started making up excuses to avoid going to music lessons. Her daughter Emily asked if her grandmother had any inkling something was going on. People didnāt talk about those things back then, Estefan replied.
She tried to reach her dad, with whom she exchanged voice tapes while he was posted in Vietnam.
Recordings in Spanish from when Estefan was 9 were played at the show with English subtitles:
Gloria: āIām taking guitar lessons. I like them but the exercises are a little hard.ā
Her dad: āMommy told me that the owner of the academy where youāre taking your guitar lessons is very proud of you.ā
Gloria: āI like the notes, but itās a little boring to study the notesā.
Her dad: āMommy tells me that he said that you are a born artist.ā
Estefan said the level of anxiety made her lose a ācircle of hair.ā
āI couldnāt take it anymore,ā she said, so one night she ran to her motherās bedroom at 3 a.m. and told her what was going on.
Her mother called the police, but the officers advised her not to press charges because the trauma of testifying would be too harmful.
Both Crawley and Estefan said during the show that they didnāt like to be called victims. Crawley called herself a survivor.
Estefan said she didnāt tell the producers she was going to reveal her story on Thursdayās episode. No one knew about the abuse except for her family, said the singer, who has been married to music producer Emilio Estefan for over four decades.
She also said that, when her mother started inquiring about this man within the family, an aunt shared that he had abused her years back in Cuba.
The Associated Press asked the showās publicist if Estefan could answer some questions, including if the man was still alive. The publicist told the AP that she would not make further comments.
On āRed Table Talk,ā Estefan recalled almost going public in the mid-80s, when her hit āCongaā with the Miami Sound Machine was at the top of the Billboard charts and āthis predator, who was a respected member of the community,ā had the audacity to write a letter to a paper criticizing her music.
āAt that moment, I was so angry that I was about to blow the lid off of everything,ā she said. āAnd then I thought: āMy whole success is gonna turn into him!
āItās manipulation and control, but thatās what they do, they take your power,ā she added, also admitting the fear that there could be other victims makes her feel bad.
After introducing Crawley and telling her that she didnāt want to sit quietly while she shared her story, Estefan said she had been waiting for the right opportunity and space to tell hers.
The show was that space.
āThis is one of the reasons why I said yes to the ā(Red) Table (Talk)ā at all, because we wanted to create this space where we talk about important things that hopefully will make a difference to everybody thatās watching out there.ā
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Sigal Ratner-Arias is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sigalratner.
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This story corrects the spelling of Clare Crawley, not Claire Crowley.