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Missy Elliott Reveals Past of Sexual Abuse

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Just one week after revealing her diagnosis with the autoimmune disorder, Graves’ Disease, rapper Missy Elliott has opened up about her troubled childhood, including that she was the victim of sexual abuse. [Via AOL]

In her episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, which debuted earlier this week — and can be streamed in full below — Missy said that she was abused by her 16-year-old cousin when she was only eight years old. “Each day he wanted me to come to the house after school,” she explained. “It became sexual, which, for me at eight years old, I had no clue what that was, but I knew something was wrong.”

“Being molested … it don’t disappear,” she added. “You remember it as if it was yesterday.” She explained that the abuse took place over the course of a year, but that she had never told anyone before.

Missy, who turns 40 on July 1, also talked about witnessing her mother being abused by her father, including an incident when she was 14, in which she saw her father pull out a loaded pistol. Missy’s mother, Patricia Elliott, also appeared on the TV special. “Missy saw that the fight was just beyond measures,” Patricia said. “My husband said, ‘This is it, I’m gonna kill you. It’s over!’ I was so tired of being beaten over and over I just said, ‘Fine, just do it.'”

Missy added, “He pulled the gun out in front of me. I was screaming, ‘Daddy, please don’t kill my mother!'” Missy’s maternal uncle, who was living next door, intervened and stopped the incident, which Missy called the “scariest time in my life.”

The rap vet also dished on the immense poverty she grew up with in Portsmouth, VA. “I remember having mice in the house and my father taking some newspaper and beating me because mice was running on me while I was asleep,” she said.

“We didn’t have running water,” added Missy’s mom. “We were going in a pot that sat by her bed, because we didn’t have a bathroom.”

Missy Elliott is currently wrapping up her seventh studio album, Block Party, which is expected to drop sometime this next year.

Watch: Missy Elliott: VH1’s Behind the Music

Tags: Behind The Music, Reality TV Shows, Reality TV Shows 6