Grammy award winning rapper Common, 47, has opened up for the first time about being molested in his new memoir Let Love Have the Last Word, in which he reflects on his personal journey with love and the knowledge he’s gleaned from therapy.
In the book he shares that it wasn’t until two years ago, during a scene with actress and friend Laura Dern, a memory of being molested as a kid suddenly came back to him.
Common details the event, revealing that it happened when he was 9 or 10 years old.
He writes, “I was excited for a road trip I was about to take with my family. My mother; my godmother, Barbara; her son and my godbrother Skeet; and his relative, who I’ll call Brandon…”
He details that he and Brandon had to share a bed that night and, “At some point I felt Brandon’s hand on me. I pushed him away. I don’t remember saying a whole lot besides ‘No, no, no.'”
But Common says his abuser would not stop. “He kept saying ‘It’s okay, It’s okay,’ as he pulled down my shorts and molested me. After he stopped he kept asking me to perform it on him. I kept repeating ‘No’ and pushing him away,” the rapper writes. “I felt a deep and sudden shame for what happened.”
Common writes that it only happened one time and he hasn’t seen his abuser in over 25 years, and has now forgiven him.
”I want to be a person who helps break cycles of violence,” he writes. “This is love in action and I intend to practice it.”
Commons book Let LoveHave The Last Word was released Tuesday and is available now.