10 Stars Who Opened Up About Abusive Relationships

Find out what these celebrities had to say…

Reese Witherspoon recently opened up about being in an abusive relationship when she was “really young.” Looking back, she says she wasn’t emotionally mature enough to realize there was something wrong. By the time she decided to leave, she had developed a deep sense of insecurity and had a warped perception of herself, all caused by the abuse.

“I was very good at being a professional and showing up and doing the right thing, but I wasn’t emotionally mature when I was young,” she said on The New York Times podcast The Interview. “You get into relationships that don't work for you, and sometimes you don't even see the dynamics that are happening.”

She continued, “It took me a while to reconstitute myself. My spirit had been diminished because I thought all those awful things that person said about me were true. I had to rewire my brain.”

Sarah Hyland was the victim of an abusive relationship during a period she called “the worst years of [her] life.” She credits her Modern Family co-star Julie Bowen and her dog Barkley for getting her through the incredibly tough time but says that the relationship left her with permanent scars. 

“[It stays] in that abused place of your soul, where you think it’s your fault the whole time and you could have done better, you could have gotten out sooner, you could have told people,” she told Variety. “I don’t know if that part [of] any woman will ever be fully healed from that. It’s something that kind of scars her soul a little bit. It’s more so putting love towards that scar instead of hating it and ignoring it.”

Rihanna made headlines when it was discovered that she had been physically and emotionally abused at the hands of her then-boyfriend Chris Brown. After a violent altercation, Rihanna became a poster child for victims of domestic abuse -- a label she admits that she didn’t want to have. Years later, she opened up about the incident, explaining that rehashing the traumatic moment over and over again only opened old wounds for her.

“A lot of women, a lot of young girls, are still going through it. A lot of young boys too. It’s not a subject to sweep under the rug, so I can't just dismiss it like it wasn't anything, or I don't take it seriously,” Rihanna shared with Vanity Fair. “But, for me, and anyone who’s been a victim of domestic abuse, nobody wants to even remember it. Nobody even wants to admit it. So to talk about it and say it once, much less 200 times, is like…I have to be punished for it? It didn’t sit well with me.”

Shortly after filing for divorce from her ex-husband, Melissa Benoist opened up about being in a physically and emotionally abusive relationship. Looking back, Melissa says that over time, her former partner’s behavior got increasingly worse -- going from controlling to extremely violent. 

“The stark truth is I learned what it felt like to be pinned down and slapped repeatedly, punched so hard the wind was knocked out of me, dragged by my hair across pavement, head-butted, pinched until my skin broke, shoved into a wall so hard the drywall broke, choked,” Melissa shared in a video on Instagram. “I learned to lock myself in rooms but quickly stopped because the door was inevitably broken down. I learned to not value any of my property -- replaceable and irreplaceable. I learned not to value myself.”

Eventually, one altercation where a phone was thrown at her face left her with injuries that will never fully heal. It was her breaking point -- and the moment she turned to a friend to get help leaving. 

“Whatever I thought love was, it certainly wasn’t what I had been going through. I was so tired of living the way I had been living, but it felt too late to get out,” she said. “Leaving was not a walk in the park. It is not an event, it’s a process. I felt complicated feelings of guilt for leaving and for hurting someone I had protected for so long, and yes, [a] mournful feeling of leaving something familiar. But luckily, the people I let in, the more I was bolstered, I never lost the sense of clarity that kept telling me, ‘You do not deserve this.’”

Early in Mariah Carey’s career, she found herself in a relationship with a domineering man who controlled her every move. Looking back, she says she had to get permission just to leave the house and admitted she felt as if she would end up “haunting the house dead.” She even once called the relationship her “personal hell” and said the constant emotional abuse she suffered left her “miserable, crying, and alone.”

“I was with someone at the time that had a lot of control over my life. He was older than me by a lot and had a lot of power and he wanted me to remain away from most people, like sequestered…I never thought I would get out of there,” she said on her show Mariah’s World, noting that she thankfully finally found the “courage to move on” and leave the relationship.

Amy Schumer was once involved in an abusive relationship where she says she constantly found herself trying to make excuses for her abuser. Looking back, she admits she got hurt “by accident” a lot, even once getting thrown on the hood of a car. She says she rationalized the violence by telling herself that her partner “didn’t realize how hard he’d grabbed me or shook me or pushed me.”

“He really had convinced me that I wasn’t lovable and he was the only person that could ever possibly love me so I better work it out with him…and then I would feel bad for him, after he hurt me, about how bad he would feel,” Amy said during a SuperSoul Conversation with Oprah. “You don’t choose to fall in love with someone who hurts you, and you can be in love with someone who hurts you.”

Hayden Panettiere found herself in an on-and-off abusive relationship for several years, which began when she was going through a dark period, dealing with addiction to alcohol and opioids. Eventually her partner was charged with domestic violence and Hayden was issued a protective order.  

“It was a very dark and complicated time in my life. But a lot of women go through what I went through, and I want people to know it’s okay to ask for help,” she told People. “None of it is okay. But I want to make sure that everybody knows that each person who goes through something like that, they’re on their own journey. No two things are exactly alike.”

Anna Kendrick was the victim of an abusive relationship -- but it took her time to realize her partner was abusing her. Looking back on the seven-year relationship, Anna says the abuse “didn’t follow the traditional pattern” so she didn’t see it at first and thought she might be the issue. 

“It was like an overnight switch...It came out of absolutely nowhere, but was built on this foundation of I had so much love and trust for that person, so I thought it had to be me,” she said on Call Her Daddy. “Like, if one of us is crazy, it must be me. So it was very, very difficult to actually go, ‘No, I think this is him. I think this is his stuff.’ I turned my life completely upside down trying to fix whatever was wrong with me." 

While the pair tried couple’s therapy, she says her partner often lied -- and it wasn’t until she hit a breaking point and yelled during one session that she finally realized she needed to leave. After the therapist expressed he was “so proud” of her for standing up for herself, Anna says things ended “pretty quickly" for the couple.

Mel B was once in an abusive relationship, which she says began with “tiny” red flags but eventually turned into physical, sexual, verbal and financial abuse. Reflecting on the relationship, Mel says the abuse and control slowly unfolded over time and eventually, she found herself cut off from her family and friends. Things got so bad that she says she worried that her partner might kill her.

“He’d say: ‘Why are you calling your mum today? Come on, let’s go out.’ Then you turn around and realise: ‘Shit, I used to call my mum every day; I haven’t spoken to her in a week!’ Then that becomes a month and two months,” she told The Guardian. “It’s like abusers have all read the same handbook. Before you know it you don’t have your own front door key, or you don’t even drive your own car any more. Those ‘privileges’ which we worked so hard to get -- your nice car, your nice house -- are slowly taken away from you.”

Mel admits she tried to leave on many occasions but since he had taken control of her life, she had nowhere to go, no car and no credit cards. It wasn’t until her father was dying of cancer that she got the courage to leave.

In 2022, Abigail Breslin opened up about a previous relationship that had turned abusive. While she says it started out “perfectly,” her abuser eventually took advantage of her “innocence and naïveté” and became both physically and emotionally abusive. Looking back, she says it was the loneliest years she’s ever experienced. 

“I was beaten on a regular basis, locked into rooms and forced to pretend everything was ok and normal while dealing with intense injuries… injuries most people didn't even see,” she wrote on Instagram. “I felt so unworthy of anyone’s love. I felt ugly and hated. I felt like I deserved less than dirt. I was certain, there must be something inherently WRONG with ME.”

It was Abigail’s friends and family who were finally able to pull her away from the “horrible situation,” and she says she will forever be indebted to those closest to her for believing her.