Rebekah Vardy Reveals How Jehovah’s Witness Treated Her When She Accused One Of Them Of S*xual Abuse

Rebekah Vardy has expressed her desire to demonstrate to others that there is a “light at the end of the tunnel” by sharing her experiences as a Jehovah’s Witness growing up.

The 41-year-old television personality claims in a Channel 4 program that she was s*xually molested by a member of the group when she was between the ages of 11 and 15 and that “elders,” or senior male church leaders, covered it up.

The football player’s wife said on Tuesday on Good Morning Britain (GMB) that she was “scared of the consequences” of talking about s*xual assault because she “feared bringing shame on the family.”

Vardy said: “I think I realized that I’ve probably only just scratched the surface, I think my story isn’t unique and there’s going to be plenty of others, as have already come out, that will continue to come out.

“I found this part of my life a bit of an obstacle but I wanted to use this obstacle to create an opportunity to help other people that have been in similar situations and just hopefully show that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”

With roughly 8.5 million adherents worldwide, the Christian sect known as Jehovah’s Witnesses holds the view that the end of the world is near.

Their members are required to adhere to a rigorous moral code, which forbids homos*xuality. Those who do not follow this rule are “disfellowshipped,” or shunned by the group.

In the documentary, Vardy also claims that after her parent’s divorce, she and her family members were shunned by the Norwich, Norfolk, community when they were young.

She asserts that when she was a teenager, a meeting was held after she disclosed the abuse to her mother, her family, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses community.

Speaking to her mother about the abuse, according to Vardy, was the “most harrowing experience” she had to go through since it caused her to turn into a “bit of a crazy rebellious teenager” and caused a “breakdown” in their relationship.

The mother of five added when asked about the long-term psychological effects: “I’ve formed a part of myself that is incredibly powerful now. I face several obstacles. I don’t show much emotion. I don’t have a lot of emotion.

“I think a lot of that has to do with what I went through in my past … It was an obstacle in my life and I want to use my experiences to help other people.”

Vardy also recalled feeling “isolated and lonely” as well as being “bullied quite badly as a child, because we were made to feel different”.

She said: “We had to stand out from everyone else, and have really strong (faith) but I lost so much time in my childhood, because of this religion and it wasn’t pleasant.”

Vardy added: “My advice to myself would have been to keep fighting, the truth will come out in the end and never, ever give up.”

Vardy encounters former Jehovah’s Witnesses throughout the video, including a child abuse victim and the mother of a man who committed himself after being dismissed from the group.

She reportedly recalls seeing “upsetting” images of the end of the world that still give her nightmares as an adult and claims she thought she would perish at Armageddon if she was not “perfect.”

The Jehovah’s Witnesses claimed in a statement to GMB that “Elders are directed to immediately report an allegation of child s*xual abuse to authorities, even if there is only one complainant.”

According to the group, “Courts have rejected the allegation that disfellowshipping and so-called shunning results in social isolation and discrimination, and it is simply false and misleading.”

The group continued by saying that the “courts have rejected the allegation that disfellowshipping and so-called shunning results in social isolation and discrimination and it is simply misleading and discriminatory to imply that our religion is controlling” and that the “being expelled from the religion contributed to suicide” claim had been rejected.

Additionally, they claimed that they “lacked the information to comment on specific cases.”

Tuesday at 10 p.m., watch Rebekah Vardy: Jehovah’s Witnesses And Me on Channel 4.