AceShowbiz -

Dax Shepard had an unpleasant childhood memory and he bravely shared it to the world in a radio interview conducted on Monday, April 18. The "Parenthood" star revealed for the first time that he was molested as a child.

"Yeah, I was molested," Shepard told Sirius XM's Jason Ellis. He was a 7-year-old boy who got sexually abused by an 18-year-old "dude in my neighborhood". The 41-year-old actor said it was "minimal" but it left a deep impression on his life.

"It took me 12 years to tell anyone," said Shepard. "And then all that time, I was like, a) 'It's my fault,' as generic as that is, I'm like, 'it's my fault. And I'm gay, I must have manifested this because I'm secretly gay.' I had all these insane thoughts for 11 years or 12 years," he said.

Dax struggled with drug and alcohol addiction in the past but he has been sober since 2004. His mother, who works with children as a court-appointed advocate for foster children, told him about a statistic that connects addiction and abuse.

"If you've been molested, you only have a 20 percent chance of not being an addict," Dax said. "But when you hear a statistic like that, I'm like, 'Oh no, I was going to be an addict, period'."

Dax has been married to actress Kristen Bell for three years now and has two kids with her.