‘I screamed at my father to stop hitting my mother’: Sir Patrick Stewart opens up about domestic abuse
Sir Patrick Stewart speaks candidly in documentary about ‘shame’ of growing up in a violent home
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Your support makes all the difference.Sir Patrick Stewart has opened up about the “horrifying” abuse his father subjected his mother to in previously unreleased footage from the Queen’s domestic abuse documentary.
The veteran actor, who has previously told of how his troubled childhood affected him as an adult, spoke about the “shame” and “humiliation” that came with witnessing the violence as a child as he described trying to protect his mother from the abuse.
Sir Patrick has advocated for victims of domestic abuse for over a decade and has recently backed The Independent’s Brick by Brick appeal upon its launch in September.
The innovative campaign, in partnership with charity Refuge, smashed its goal to raise £300,000 to build a safe home for women fleeing violence and is now fundraising to build a second home.
Be a brick, buy a brick and donate here or text BRICK to 70560 to donate £15
Queen Camilla also backed the campaign ahead of the release of her 90-minute film following her work spreading awareness for the cause.
Unseen footage from the documentary of Sir Patrick sharing his story has now been shared, with the actor describing how his “perfect” life was shattered when his father returned from WWII when he was six years old.
“My life with my mother and my brother was perfect. We got on well. There was no arguing or shouting or getting upset or anything like that. It was just wonderful. The war ended in 1945 so I was by the time my father came home, I was six years old, and it was horrifying,” he said.
“The shouting was so loud because he had a huge voice. I would scream at my father to stop when he hit my mother and hit her again and again. And there were times when we used to sit on the steps leading down from the bedrooms, right behind the door that opened up into the one living room, and we would sit right behind it.
“My brother and I, we became experts at understanding where the shouting was going, what it was going to lead to, and we always knew the moment that the violence was going to begin.
“So with that, we would push open the door and burst into the room, and my brother, Trevor, who was taller than me, would force himself between my father and my mother so that he couldn’t reach her and she would shout out, no, no, no, please. You don’t have to protect me.”
He added how his neighbours were aware of the abuse and at one point physically intervened.
He said: “I’ll never forget our very next-door neighbour coming into the house, bursting the door open when my father was yelling and walked over to my father, pushed her sleeves up, put up her fists and said, ‘Come on, Al Stewart, try it on me. Try it on me.’ And of course, he didn’t. He didn’t touch her. He stepped away.”
The actor still finds it difficult to understand why his mother did not leave his father and said he “never told anyone” about the abuse as it “was something that people never spoke about”.
“I kept it all to myself. It was locked inside me, and I felt shame,” he said.
You can watch the Queen’s full documentary, made by Love Monday TV, on ITVX.
Please donate now to the Brick by Brick campaign, launched by The Independent and charity Refuge, to help raise another £300,000 to build a second safe space for women where they can escape domestic abuse, rebuild their lives and make a new future. Text BRICK to 70560 to donate £15.