The former 'In Treatment' star opens up about the sexual abuse incident he experienced as a child in new memoir 'Walking With Ghosts', revealing that he once contacted his abuser via phone call.
- January 14, 2021
AceShowbiz - Gabriel Byrne once contacted the priest he accused of sexually molesting him as a child.
The Irish actor opens up about the incident in his new memoir "Walking With Ghosts", but writes that while he wanted to confront the man during the phone call, he discovered that his alleged abuser had no idea who he was - and even thanked him for phoning.
"I wanted in those last seconds to call him a **** and say that even though I don't believe in Hell, I hope he does because I want him to be terrified and burn forever," he wrote.
"But I said nothing. Some part of me did not want to hurt an old man with a kindly voice stuck in a retirement home who now had no memory of me or anything he'd done."
Byrne added in an interview with The New York Times that the priest died a long time ago.
"We love to think there's a resolution to these things, that that's how to deal with trauma - 'I confronted him; I dealt with it; I moved on,'" he told the publication. "But that's not necessarily true. I realised that there doesn't have to be a resolution."
"The Usual Suspects" star previously shared he was sexually abused when he was 11 years old, by a member of the Christian Brothers in England.
"Even years later, it feels like the night has been concreted over. I've been picking at it with a pin ever since, afraid to use a jackhammer, afraid of what's buried in there," he wrote in the tome, which is out now.
