Film

Demi Moore says she was raped at 15 after her mother allegedly ‘sold her’ for $500

The actor reveals during TV interview that her mother put her ‘in harm’s way’

Demi Moore: the actor spoke candidly on Good Morning America. Photograph: Ramona Rosales/New York Times

Tue Sep 24 2019 - 10:16

Demi Moore said she was raped aged 15 by a man who claimed to have paid her mother $500 (€450).

The Hollywood star, 56, made the allegation during a candid television interview to discuss her memoir.

Speaking on Good Morning America, she said she came home to find the alleged rapist in her apartment. After he had raped her, Moore alleges, he said her mother had sold her to him for $500.

Moore reveals in her memoir that her mother was an alcoholic. Asked if she believed the man, she said: “I think, in my deep heart, no. I don’t think it was a straightforward transaction.

READ MORE

“But she still — she did give him the access and put me in harm’s way.”

Moore dedicated her book, Inside Out, to her mother, as well as her three daughters with ex-husband Bruce Willis.

Moore said her mother attempted suicide while the actor was 12 and it was her intervention that saved her life. “I remember using my fingers, the small fingers of a child, to dig the pills my mother had tried to swallow, out of her mouth,” Moore writes in the book.

Moore was one of the most successful actors of the 1990s, known for films such as Ghost, A Few Good Men and Indecent Proposal.

She initially found fame in the 1980s with appearances in Blame It On Rio and St Elmo's Fire, before her starring role in the 1990 romantic thriller Ghost, opposite Patrick Swayze, cemented her status as one of the world's biggest stars.

After becoming the highest paid female actor in Hollywood, critics gave her the nick name “Gimme Moore” — but Moore was not bothered by the jibe. “Why shouldn’t all women be paid equal to the quality of the work they’re doing? Just treat me the same. No better, no worse”, she said. – PA

[ jo@samaritans.ie ]

LATEST STORIES