Gloria Estefan reveals childhood sexual abuse on ‘Red Table Talk’

Trigger warning: This article contains depictions of sexual assault.

On this week’s episode of her Red Table Talk series, Gloria Estefan revealed that she’s been waiting a long time to tell her story, and that’s exactly what she did. The installment featured Bachelor star Clare Crawley opening up about her own experiences with assault, but in introducing her guest, Estefan first opened up to viewers.

“Ninety-three percent of abused children know and trust their abusers. And I know this because I was one of them,” she opened. “I was nine years-old when this happened and it was someone that my mother trusted. He was family but not close family. He was in a position of power because my mother had put me in his music school,” she continued.

“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,” Estefan recalled. “He put it in a way of, ‘Oh, you’re so good at this, and let me teach you and whatever.’ And then, it starts little by little and then it goes fast.”

Estefan, now 64, explained that she knew it was a dangerous situation and when she fought back the man threatened her by saying he knew her father was in Vietnam and her mother was all alone, and that he would kill her mother if Estefan said anything.

“I knew he was crazy because at no point did I ever think that it was because of me that this was happening. I knew the man was insane and that’s why I thought he might actually hurt my mother,” she said. “I tried every which way to get out of going to that school. I invented that I was sick.”

Estefan explained that her mother didn’t have any inkling because situations like these weren’t spoken about in her mother’s lifetime. She also recalled telling her father that she no longer wanted to go to the school, and that she wanted to focus on singing. The show then shared a recording of her dad saying the teacher saw promise and that he’s so proud of her.

“He said it’s a shame to waste that talent and then a circle of hair fell out from my head from anxiety,” Estefan said. “Finally one morning at 3 in the morning I just ran to my mother’s room because I couldn’t take it anymore. And I told her about it and the police came and she said this is what’s happening.”

According to Estefan, the police told her mother not to press charges because the trauma she would have to go through sitting on the stand would be worse than the trauma that had already happened. “That’s the one thing that I feel bad about, knowing that there must have been other victims,” she said.

“But even later on, this predator who was a respected member of the community had the [gall] to when we had our first big hit with ‘Conga’, wrote a letter to the paper criticizing my music,” she said. “At that moment I was so angry that I was about to like blow the lid off of everything and then I thought my whole success is gonna to turn into him. It’s that manipulation and control, but that’s what they do. They take your power.”

Estefan then welcomed Crawley to the table to speak about her own experiences, as well as an expert to help teach parents how to help protect and support their children. But the host returned to her story once more at the end of the episode, saying she feels it’s important to speak out and to spread awareness in order to cut down the percentage of this happening at all.

“Listen, to everyone that’s watching out there, I knew that one day I would share this story. I was waiting for the right opportunity and space to do so,” she said. “This is one of the reasons that I said yes to The Table at all. Because we wanted to create this space where we talk about important things that hopefully will make a difference to everybody that’s watching out there.”