
'I will kill her if you tell her': Gloria Estefan says she was 9 when sexually abused by someone her mother trusted
CTV
Gloria Estefan has revealed that when she was 9 years old 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 "Red Table Talk: The Estefans" that aired Thursday.
“He 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,” 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 “Bachelorette.” On the episode, called “Betrayed by Trusted Adults,” 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.