Demi Moore, once an A-list actress, had a hard childhood riddled with abuse and negligence.
For many of us, the mental health issues we face as adults can be traced back to our childhood. Whether our childhood was safe and comfortable or turbulent or violent, it shapes us as people. We might believe that hardships build character, but we need to keep an eye on what kind of character. For Demi Moore, who was once an A-lister in Hollywood, her turbulent growing up years left her battling her own personal demons.
Moore, 58, was born in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1962. At an age when she should have received the love of her parents, her dad Charles Harmon Sr, a US Air Force serviceman, abandoned her mom Ginny when she was pregnant with Moore. Months after the Ghost actress was born, her mom married ad salesman Dan Guynes. Moore believed that Guynes was her biological father until she turned 13, which is when she found her birth certificate, as per The Sun.
For a teen, this can be life-altering. This new information and her mom's suicidal behavior rocked her to her core. Her mom once tried to end her life and the 13-year-old future star had to manually remove the pills from her mother's mouth. "I remember using my fingers, the small fingers of a child, to dig the pills my mother had tried to swallow out of her mouth while my father held it open and told me what to do. Something very deep inside me shifted then, and it never shifted back. My childhood was over," she said.
While Ginny lived, Guynes wasn't lucky. Four years after that incident, the man Moore called her father, took his own life following his separation. However, by then, the A Few Good Men star had already moved to West Hollywood with her mother, who had addiction issues.
It was in West Hollywood that Moore was assaulted sexually and soon after that, her life spun out of her control. She had been assaulted in her own home after her mom took money from the alleged attacker, she was quoted as saying by The Scotsman. After the attack, the man told Moore that her mom sold her to him for $500.
"I think, in my deep heart no. I don't think it was a straightforward transaction. But she still - she did give him the access and put me in harm's way," said the mother-of-three. Ginny, an alcoholic, died in 1998.
On her 16th birthday, a young Moore left home to live with a guitarist in a band, according to the Sun. A few years later, she married rock singer, Freddy Moore, frontman for Boy, and took his surname.
Those turned out to be some of the wildest days of her life. Moore, who was known for her wild image, revealed in her book that she ruined her marriage by cheating on Freddy. She also began struggling with addiction, just like her mom. She became obsessed with keeping her weight in check. "My value was tied into my body," she said.
Eventually, she shot to fame with St Elmo's Fire and went on to star in some of the biggest movies in Hollywood. However, her second husband, Bruce Willis, was allegedly not supportive of her career. He wanted her to take care of their three daughters, Rumer, 32, Scout 29, and Tallulah 26, instead of working like him. Back then, she also fought against the industry asking for equal pay for equal work. "With that came a lot of negativity and a lot of judgment towards me, which I’m happy to have held if it made a difference," she said.
Eventually, Willis and she separated, but they co-parent their daughters as a team.
She went on to marry Ashton Kutcher, which is also widely written about since it was plagued with infidelity and addiction.
References:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/9925358/demi-moore-memoirs-suicidal-mother/
https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/demi-moore-i-was-raped-15-man-who-paid-my-mother-500-636613
