Inside Rebekah Vardy’s tough childhood and fractured relationship with her mother – after WAG revealed the trauma of growing up a Jehovah’s Witness and sexual abuse she suffered
Rebekah Vardy opened up for the first time this week about her tough childhood growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness and the sexual abuse she suffered at a young age.
The WAG, 41, most recently described the moment she told her mother Alison Nicholson she was sexually abused aged 12 – but she didn’t believe her.
Rebekah has had a fractured relationship with her mum, who split from the star’s father Carlos Miranda when she was just 11.
Alison famously didn’t even attend her daughter’s own wedding to footballer Jamie Vardy, 36, in 2016.
Here MailOnline takes a look at Rebekah’s turbulent family dynamics:
Difficult: Rebekah Vardy opened up for the first time this week about her tough childhood growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness and the sexual abuse she suffered at a young age
Terrible: The WAG, 41, most recently described the moment she told her mother Alison Nicholson she was sexually abused aged 12 – but she didn’t believe her
Growing up: Rebekah has had a fractured relationship with her mum, who split from the star’s father Carlos Miranda when she was just 11
This week Rebekah Vardy described the moment she told her mother she was sexually abused aged 12 but she didn’t believe her.
She has spoken for the first time about her experiences of growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness, and shared that she tried to take her own life at the of 14 before being shunned by her family.
She alleges in a Channel 4 documentary that the religion failed to support her through sexual abuse as a child.
Rebekah said: ‘I told my mum about the abuse that I was experiencing. She cried, but didn’t believe me.
‘From the age of around 12 years old I was being abused and instead of being supported I was blamed, manipulated into believing it wasn’t the best thing to take it to the police.’
Speaking to Good Morning Britain she added that she has ‘no relationship’ with her mother, after being thrown out of home aged 16.
She said: ‘The breakdown in our relationship was the abuse and not being believed.’
Mrs Vardy added that she did ‘crazy’ things as a teenager but that looking back it was no surprise given what happened to her.
Having her say: Mrs Vardy has told a Channel 4 documentary that the religion failed to support her through sexual abuse as a child
Tough: Speaking to Good Morning Britain she added that she has ‘no relationship’ with her mother, after being thrown out of her home aged 16
Awful: Mrs Vardy said when she told her mother that she was being abused, her mother cried but did not believe her
She was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness in Norwich, Norfolk, but left at the age of 15, after she was ‘shamed’ for the sexual abuse and was shunned by the community alongside family members following her parents’ divorce.
Mother-of-five Mrs Vardy said she was sexually abused by an individual in the community between the ages of 11 to 15, which she claimed was covered up by ‘elders’, senior male religious leaders.
When Vardy was 11, she said her family were shunned by the community after her parents’ divorce.
Mrs Vardy said relatives and friends were forbidden from associating with her family, which contributed to her ‘resentment’ of religion and her parents.
‘I think that’s where my real resentment to religion started, was being made to feel so bad, so different,’ she said.
Mrs Vardy’s mother Alison didn’t attend her daughter’s wedding to footballer Jamie Vardy, 36, in 2016.
Asked why she had not attended, Alison said at the time: ‘We’d rather not say why even though it’s obvious people are now going to be wondering why the bride’s mother isn’t at her 34-year-old daughter’s wedding.
‘I can appreciate that people are interested in them as a couple but we want our privacy and don’t want to get involved in any publicity.
‘Things change and while there might be issues, we don’t want to comment on the reason why we didn’t go.’
Mrs Nicholson married first husband Carlos Miranda, 63 – Mrs Vardy’s father – in 1978 in Norwich.
After they divorced they both went on to marry again.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are a Christian denomination with about 8.5million followers worldwide, who believes the destruction of the world is imminent.
They impose a strict moral code on members, including that homosexuality is a sin, and punishes those who deviate from their beliefs by ‘disfellowshipping’ them, ostracising them from the community.
In the documentary Mrs Vardy returns to Norwich, where several members of her family still live as Jehovah’s Witnesses, and with whom she has had little contact since leaving the community.
She says: ‘I was brought up in a strict and controlling religious organisation.
‘What happened to me during my childhood still affects me every single day.
‘I told numerous members of my family, Jehovah’s Witness community, and they called a meeting, I think I was about 15, it was suggested that I had misinterpreted the abuse for a form of affection.
‘I knew that I hadn’t, I was well aware of what was right and what was wrong, and it was explained that I could bring shame on my family, and I was basically manipulated into believing it wasn’t the best thing to do to take it any further and take it to the police.
‘It’s hard to see how I survived that.’
Mrs Vardy recalls a childhood without Christmas or birthday celebrations, in line with the religion’s beliefs, with bible studies and visits to the Kingdom Hall, the religious centre of worship for Jehovah’s Witnesses.
As a child Mrs Vardy said she believed she would die at Armageddon if she was not ‘perfect’ and recalls ‘upsetting’ images shown to her depicting the end of the world, which still cause her nightmares as an adult.
Visiting the Kingdom Hall where her congregation gathered, and where her grandfather was an elder, Mrs Vardy said: ‘You would have to do things to keep Jehovah happy, because he was always watching.
‘Who you spoke to, how you spoke, how you dressed, how you held yourself, how you conducted every part of your whole life, and we were told if we didn’t pray enough, bad things would happen to us.’
Mrs Vardy said she knew her family was different from an early age, their faith causing her to be bullied and picked on at school.
At home her parents’ relationship was difficult, with elders regularly called to their home to ‘calm down’ arguments.
In the documentary Mrs Vardy also meets former members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, including a victim of child abuse and the mother of a man who died by suicide after being expelled by the organisation.
Mrs Vardy described the experience of revisiting her past as an ’emotional rollercoaster’.
She told reporters: ‘I had closed Pandora’s box and didn’t want to revisit that.
‘I went into this thinking this was going to be quite easy and actually, wow, it was a real challenge. It was an emotional rollercoaster.
‘I have never been so open and personal about my experiences but also to discover other people who had been through similar experiences, witnessed similar things, if not worse, and to hear their stories, I just think they’re incredibly brave for being prepared to speak out.’
Hard: Mrs Vardy was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness in Norwich, Norfolk, but left at the age of 15, after she was ‘shamed’ for the sexual abuse
Religion: There are more than eight million Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide and 130,000 in the UK, using their glossy magazine The Watchtower and online videos to promote their message
Childhood: Mrs Vardy said she knew her family was different from an early age, their faith causing her to be bullied and picked on at school
Asked whether making the documentary had given her closure on what she experienced as a child, Mrs Vardy said: ‘Definitely. I think this chapter has closed.
‘It already really was, but I really wanted to do this when Channel 4 approached me, because I was fascinated by it.
‘Knowing that I had a voice, knowing that my voice could help and hopefully there will be more people who come forward to share their experiences.’
Rebekah Vardy: Jehovah’s Witnesses and Me, is on Channel 4 at 10pm tonight.
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