Sugar Ray Leonard’s toughest fight
The former boxing champion recently revealed that he was sexually abused as a teenager.
Sugar Ray Leonard is relieved that his secret is out, said Gordon Marino in The Wall Street Journal. At 55, the former boxing champion has recently revealed that he was sexually abused as a teenager—twice. The first time, he says, it was by a well-known Olympic boxing coach who began touching him and making sexual suggestions. He describes the man involved in the second incident only as a white man in a position of authority. “He helped me here and there with cash that I really needed. He put his hands in a sexual way on my shoulders and began moving down. I couldn’t believe it was happening again. I ran out to my car—where I started shaking and crying.”
He kept the incidents to himself for years, though even after he became a champion, he would sometimes burst into tears for no apparent reason. “No one asked why I was crying. No one asked, ‘How are you feeling, Ray?’” he says, with evident bitterness. The abuse fueled his rage in the ring, and it also took him to some dark places with drugs and drinking, and to the end of his first marriage. He sobered up, began therapy, and found that confronting his demons was worth it. “Other guys have come up to me and told me that it happened to them too. They often have a tear in their eye. I tell them it’s all right.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Ottawa climate talks: can global plastic problem be solved?
In the spotlight Nations aim to draft world's first treaty on plastic pollution, but resistance from oil- and gas-producing countries could limit scope
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Netherlands split on WFH for sex workers
Speed Read Councils concerned over 'nuisance' of at-home sex work, but others say changes will curb underground sex trade
By Arion McNicoll, The Week UK Published
-
'He adored Trump, and then rejected him'
Today's Newspapers A roundup of the headlines from the US front pages
By The Week Staff Published