It looks like the mainstream media has finally picked up on Marilyn Monroe’s history of child sexual abuse. I wrote about this years ago.
Click here to read my article: Too Long a Silence: Marilyn Monroe’s History of Sexual Abuse
From the Los Angeles Weekly Blog: “Marilyn Monroe lived a strange, secret life that involved wearing disguises.
She also indeed suffered sexual abuse as a child. Those facts and more were confirmed in a thorough new biography by USC history professor Lois Banner, who found that the original blonde bombshell was much more intellectual than history has given her credit for.
The recently released book Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox bring’s L.A.’s late leading lady to life via …
… more than 100 interviews with Monroe’s friends and associates, according to USC.
“She read Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Chekov and once took a UCLA course on Renaissance art. Monroe was “completely determined” to be culturally fluent — to be, as USC states, “the best.”
Banner’s research found Monroe’s claim of having been sexually abused as a child to be true. According to the school:
She also confirmed the childhood sexual abuse that would sometimes manifest itself in aberrant behavior. Later in life, Monroe would speak publicly about that abuse — a bold act for any national celebrity, but particularly for a woman in the conservative 1950s.
The actress’ “hidden life,” which involved disguises and aliases, was also revealed in the book. Banner:
She had put together this whole fantasy world for herself in addition to the regular world in which she lived. She liked to do daring and dangerous things.”
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EVIL SITS AT THE DINNER TABLE 
I had a photo of Marilyn Monroe that was on the cover of Life Magazine that I had saved for years. I was 12 when I saw it and gave it a place in my secret treasure box.
She had the most broken, saddest look in her eyes, on that beautiful face and I felt instant compassion for her. I think that I must have connected deeply on some emotional level with her brokenness. (The editors at the magazine saw and felt it also).
That photo has since been cast off many years ago but I still see her brokenness in my minds image of her when I see articles written about her.
The photo that you used for this post, is the most flattering one that I think that I have ever seen of her.
A beautiful little girl who was raped because a monster was residing in her home and seized an opportunity to do evil in the land of the living.
“Secret treasure box” is kind of a an intuitive thing on your part.
There are photos of Marilyn that capture her pain, but I could not use them because of copyright issues. This one I thought was good because it shows her innocence, and that she was not all sex, and it seems to be a joyful moment for her.
🙂
What I meant by that Secret Box comment Little Nel, is that you must have sensed that she had a deep secret.
Yes. I wanted to shield her and comfort her, so that’s where I thought that she was the safest in my secret treasure box. It’s where I put my things that had been broken, by a brother, to hurt me. Even though they were broken, I still treasured them.
In Marilyn’s childhood the abuser was protected, not her. Her mother protected a monster because she needed his income.
I have to ask myself, if “his income” had not been an issue would Marilyn’s mother still have protected him and betrayed her daughter?
Would she have ever taken Marilyn to a doctor and verified her abuse? I think not because the truth would have been too “messy.”
Shut up, shut up, shut up, little child, we don’t want scandal or public examination/exposure.
I think that it is interesting that Marilyn thrived on scandal and public exposure until the power it gave her wasted away. The very things that her mother avoided, she embraced.
I have observed that in my own family they still protect the offender even when money is not an issue. It’s a tradition.
Hi Little Nel,
I think that any woman who allows the sexual abuse of her daughter to continue for financial reasons would allow it to continue for any reason she could think of. From what I have read, Marilyn’s mother blamed Marilyn and made her feel as if Marilyn was the sinner, not the man who sexually abused her at the boarding house.
Not wanting the public shame and humiliation is a big one on the list of mothers who keep their husband’s secrets. It was a tradition in my family.
I had no idea this happened to Marilyn Monroe. In reading the blog history, I realize I am not alone in any of the trauma I experienced and especially not alone in the insane results and after effect of sexual abuse. I was sexual-ized at a young age, and abandoned by an unavailable emotional basket case of a mother, who was and is now a Jesus freak. She married a pedophile and I got to grow up with these two freaks. She modeled a double-life to me, I acted out modeled this and destroyed my life. I did it all to gain power and control and somehow gain resolution to my past. My mother’s abandonment was also the worst, more so than any molestation. I developed “alters”, a promiscuous one and that. I’ve since “killed” it, but now have no sexual desire in a normal, healthy way. I wonder if I have BPD, I have elements of a sociopath in me because I don’t feel and have proper empathy; and I just realized I have or had DID. I find myself now to be a child inside,inside a 46 year old traumatized woman’s body… fits of rage, all of what I just read sounds so familiar.
Like Red in Shawshank Redemption; I am either going to get busy living or get busy dying. I I would like to be more than just a survivor in my life, and I wonder about hope; and if I can get to Zihuatanejo and leave my prison state behind.
This is some hope: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/03/sports/olympics/kayla-harrison-overcame-horror-to-win-judo-gold.html?pagewanted=all
At least her mother was behind her.
Dear Cathy,
You are 100% correct in saying that your mother’s abandonment was worse than the sexual abuse. This is the experience of many of us who were sexually abused. There are also unknown numbers of children and adults who have repressed this righteous anger for their mother. I have seen it on talk shows, and in my own friends.
Previous victims will sit by their mothers and say, “I have forgiven her” but you can see in their body language, facial expressions, or sometimes through their tears, that they have not truly forgiven and hold their mother very responsible for their continued suffering as children. The mother is sacred to children so when she fails us, it is a much deeper wound. She is also the one we, and society, put on a pedestal. So many victims repress their true feelings for their mother because of the so-called “sacredness” of mothers.
“I wonder if I have BPD, I have elements of a sociopath in me because I don’t feel and have proper empathy…”
Try not to label yourself Cathy or to self-diagnose because you are experiencing something very common in those who have been sexually abused and abandoned. It is a feeling of a lack of empathy or detachment from the suffering of others, but this is quite normal in those who have been severely abused. It is not a part of you, nor does it define you.
It is not who you truly are.
“It is a feeling of a lack of empathy or detachment from the suffering of others, but it is quite normal in those who have been severely abused. It is not a part of you, nor does it define you.”
I walked through that emotional graveyard and found that I was not interred there. I was just passing through it. Even though it scared me, it was not my destination, just a part of the journey.
“I did it to gain power and control and somehow gain resolution to my past”
I can relate. I did all the wrong things for all the right reasons also.
I spent time and effort to recover my feelings of self-worth and feelings of security that were lost in childhood as a result of the abuse and abandonment, then denied it. It was hard to acknowledge my pain and shame to myself, let alone other people.
You would think that anyone who had a brain would have known that, but ohhhh noo, if someone acted the way she did, even those of us with no fame or that kind of beauty, it was because we were sluts and whores and crazy. Poor Marilyn what a tragedy.
Yes and so true about our worth being our sex appeal and beauty, that is still hard for me to get over now at 62 almost 63. That is why I still fight workaholism, there is never enough that I can do that makes me feel that I am okay. Believe me I understand it I just can\’t feel it. I think of those Olympians, where do they go from there? Washed up has beens? I hope not such a tragedy, to be at the top at 16 or 18 , 21, or whatever and how do you beat that. If your only value is at being the best, it is such a catch 22. I think that is the phrase that applies.
Shana, I think of the Olympic athletes too. They pump their fist when they score a point over their opponent and regard their medals as sacred. But what happens when they grow older and someone younger and better comes along? What happens when their medal is stolen and their commercial endorsements run out and are forgotten?
What is left is only how they were raised and what their level of consciousness is.
I agree with your post about Marilyn Monroe, Alethea.
She was a woman who was in emotional pain and her adulthood was affected by the abuse and it caused her to to destroy herself.
This was a woman who could not find fulfillment in relationships, intimacy, or love with adult men or women because of the betrayals, cover ups, and all the efforts to keep her silent about the abuse.
When she started to age, and was afraid of loosing her sex appeal, she had nothing left to live for as that was all she recognized in herself as valuable. Her value was depreciating with age in Hollywood just like the diva’s before her like Mae West, Marion Davies, Greta Garbo…etc… not a comforting thought when you are facing it.
Boy you called it here Little Nel. And I can sure relate to Marilyn in her thinking her self-worth lay solely in her sex appeal and attention from men. Up until recently, that had been my life. I am so grateful that I am finally finding my true self-worth and true self.