There are Hollywood stars, and then there are superstars.
The man we’re focusing on today is one of the biggest A-listers of all time.
He was also named the Sexiest Man Alive twice.
But long before the fame, he was just a little boy — abused and beaten by his own mother and forced to watch his family fall apart.
Never felt safe
Life on the A-list is glamorous, exciting, and filled with red-carpet moments, but for one Hollywood star, the bright lights couldn’t have been more different from the childhood he knew. Despite his success at the box office, his private life at home was, in his own words, nothing short of a true drama.
Born in a small Kentucky town as the youngest of four children, he grew up with a waitress mother and a civil engineer father. The family moved frequently during his childhood, eventually settling in Miramar, Florida, in 1970.
Inside the family home, daily life was, unfortunately, dominated by violence and disorder.
”There was physical abuse, certainly, which could be in the form of an ashtray being flung at you, you know, it hits you in the head or you get beat with a high-heeled shoe or telephone — whatever was handy. So in our house, we were never exposed to any type of safety or security,” the actor once shared.
He added, ”The verbal abuse, the psychological abuse, was almost worse than the beatings. The beatings were just physical pain. The physical pain, you learn to deal with. You learn to accept it. You learn to deal with it.”
