Berry has spoken publicly about being a “victim of domestic violence” and has been a longtime volunteer with the domestic violence intervention program Jenesse Center. At the 2015 unite4:humunity gala, she told the crowd, “I wasn’t married to a man that beat me up, but my mother was.”
The 55-year-old actress recalled that when she was 5 years old, she watched her mother beaten “day after day after day,” getting “kicked down stairs” and hit in the head with a wine bottle.
“Knowing that she wanted nothing more than for her little girls to see her be empowered and be a woman of strength—but having no way to make that happen—was heartbreaking for me,” Berry said. “She stayed for too long and her children, my sister and I, saw far too much and I’ve suffered the damage of being a child of domestic violence.”
Furthermore, Berry reportedly told People in 1996 that an ex-boyfriend punctured her eardrum while hitting her.
Speaking with the NYT this week, she suggested that her fame has not protected her from pain. “This hasn’t spared me one heartbreak or heartache or fearful or tearful moment, trust me,” she shared.
Bruised will be in theaters on Nov. 17 before debuting on Netflix the following week.
