André Leon Talley is opening up about being sexually abused as a child.
The legendary writer, 70, who is the former American editor-at-large of Vogue magazine, speaks about his childhood struggles and rise to fame in his new memoir The Chiffon Trenches.
Talley, who was raised by his grandmother in Durham, North Carolina, says, according to People: “I was the only child in the house,” adding that he wasn’t like other boys in the neighbourhood.
“I had a ritual. I would walk across the railroad tracks to the campus of Duke. I would buy Vogue. I took them home and would devour them. I hung the pages on the wall—Naomi Sims, Pat Cleveland, the great African-American models. I made my own world.”
Talley says he was nine years old when he first started being sexually abused.
“It was not one man, it was many, young adults, teenagers, or men throughout the neighbourhood. It was painful. It was serial. And it took place in shame. In shaming places, in dark places—like the woodshed of my house, where they kept the wood and coal.”
He continues, “I was afraid to tell anyone. I was afraid they would send me away. I didn’t know at that time, that you could go to doctors. We didn’t have hotlines for sexual abuse or suicide. I did not know how to articulate this. It has lived with me until I wrote this book.
“I found a way to alleviate the pain, through the escapism of fashion and the world of style and, eventually, the pages of Vogue.”
Talley admits he’s been unable to get close to anybody — male or female — since.
He shares, “I am grateful for my life, but I am not happy with who I am. I want to continue to try and be kind and not cruel. But I have had a difficult life.
“I have not been able to have any intimacy that is successful. I don’t have intimacy with men or women. I am afraid to be touched. I still don’t know who to trust.”
