Charlamagne Tha God said watching Tyler Perry talk about his childhood trauma on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” a few years ago helped him recognize his own.
“I watched him crying and I remember saying to myself, ‘Well, you know, what’s wrong with him?'” Charlamagne said on “Daily Blast Live” Monday. “Because I think the way that men process sexual assault is different.”
He said that he previously didn’t “look at it as sexual assault,” but rather as “I was eight getting it popping with an older woman.”
In 2010, Perry had informed Winfrey about being assaulted by various men since he was five years old. He also revealed that his first sexual experience with a woman occurred when the mother of one of his friends seduced him when he was just ten years old.
This hit home for Charlamagne as he was assaulted by his cousin’s ex-wife when he was only eight years old.
“I literally remember me and my guys at that age having conversations of being with older women back then,” he said. “None of us processed it as sexual assault.”
He told “Daily Blast Live” that he used to assume it was usual for young guys to have sexual encounters with older women.
Charlamagne stated he didn’t fully comprehend what had happened to him at a young age until he was in his late 30s.
“Then, I just understood it more because you don’t know what that did to you,” he concluded.
Charlamagne has written a book called “Shook One: Anxiety Playing Tricks on Me” to normalize mental health issues after dealing with his traumas in therapy.
