Chesney Hawkes speaks out on the impact of being molested when he was 13

Chesney Hawkes has revealed that he was sexually abused as a child, and explained the impact it has had on him over the years.

The pop singer, who is currently a contestant on ITV’s Celebrity Big Brother, opened up about the ordeal during a recently released interview as part of The Independent’s Good Vibrations podcast.

He shared the news as he is currently gearing up to share a new album called ‘Living Arrows’ – which includes a song called ‘13’ and makes a nod to the trauma he encountered as a result.

“When I was young – I was 13 years old – I was molested. It lasted longer than it should have done, put it that way, and I kind of carried that with me my whole life and didn’t really realise how much it affected me until a little bit later on,” he said.

While he did not explicitly say who the person responsible was, he did say it was not a family member, and that he was inspired to tackle the themes in the ‘13’ song after opening up to his wife of 27 years.

“I just had this kind of crying, breakthrough moment with my wife about it,” he said. “I thought, that’s it. I’ve dealt with that now and we can move on. So I went up to Nick [Kershaw, songwriter]’s house and we had a glass of wine. We started talking and he was like, ‘Are you alright?’ And I just spilled it out to him.”

He went on to share that he created the song as it was something he felt “people need to hear”, and how it allowed him to be more vulnerable throughout the remainder of the album.

“I was definitely in a state of wanting to get shit out. So there are a couple of other songs on the album that tackle some deeper, more difficult topics as well,” he added.

Elsewhere in the interview, Hawkes reflected on his time in the spotlight after he shot to fame as a teenager when he shared the 1991 song ‘The One And Only’.

“Being young was definitely [behind some] difficult mental health issues as a kid,” he said, adding that he briefly dabbled in substance abuse as he got older. “But also there [were] other things like where you’re part of the machine – I was part of the machine – so there were people in charge of my career.”

Listen to the full interview above.

In other Chesney Hawkes news, back in 2023 the singer revealed that he and his wife left their kids a heartfelt voice memo as an aeroplane they were on plunged 20,000ft in the air.

The post Chesney Hawkes speaks out on the impact of being molested when he was 13 appeared first on NME.