Meredith Vieira is getting incredibly candid about a particularly dark moment from her past.
In a clip from Wednesday's episode of "The Meredith Vieira Show," the talk show host opens up about an abusive relationship she was in "many many years ago as a young woman" -- and the horrific specifics of the torment she suffered at her exes hands.
"There is this Twitter trend that's happening now #WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft, it's a campaign of confessions of women who have experienced domestic violence and what you realize when you read these tweets is that it's a very very complicated issue," she says. "So, I want to explain to you why I stayed."
The trend started after the disturbing Ray Rice video was published on TMZ, showing him punching his then-fiancee Janay Palmer.
"I loved this guy, it started out we'd have a fight and he'd just sort of grab my arm," Vieira reveals. "I didn't think a lot about it and then it turned into pushing me into a wall and then it went beyond that to actually taking his hand and grabbing my face and saying, 'I could ruin your career if I wanted to and no one would want you.'"
Meredith admits she knew she had the means "to get out" of the relationship at the time, but stayed with him for fear of what he'd do if she left.
"I was scared if I tried to leave something worse could happen to me. Part of it was guilt because every time we would have a fight he would then start crying and say, 'I promise I won't do it again' and I would feel like maybe I contributed somehow to this and they are saying this about Ray Rice's wife, that it takes two to tango."
There was one especially violent moment with this man that stood out as the worst.
"Then there was the night, we shared an apartment, and he threw me into a shower, naked with scalding water and then he threw me outside into the hallway, we lived in an apartment building and I hid in the stairwell for two hours until he came again crying, 'I promise I won't do this again.'"
Even then she didn't leave him. The two parted ways after she accepted a job in another state.
"If you are going through this get yourself to a shelter, by all means tell somebody what's going on, let somebody know. That's just my experience with it and I know it's rampant in this country and we all have to accept the fact that it's not just an issue with the NFL, it's an issue with all of our lives and until we take it seriously more and more women are going to get abused."
Visit the National Domestic Violence Hotline for more help and information.
