Sheryl Underwood Claims Past Sexual Abuse Amid Josh Duggar Scandal
"The Talk" co-host opens up about her own alleged past sexual abuse experiences.
— -- The Josh Duggar molestation scandal hit close to home for comedian Sheryl Underwood.
"The Talk" co-host opened up about what she says were her her own past sexual abuse experiences a day after Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar discussed their son "inappropriately touching" four of his sisters and a babysitter with Fox News host Megyn Kelly.
"I went through that [at] 3, 4, 5 years old. You know something is wrong," Underwood, 51, shared with "The Talk" audience on Thursday. "I didn't sleep. I learned how to stay up as long as I could. I may sleep at school, because nobody is going to protect me. So I had to protect myself."
It was not clear who Underwood was claiming abused her.
Getting emotional, Underwood continued: "It took me years to have to learn how to love myself because I felt that I was worthless. I felt that I was less than. I felt that I deserved this or brought it on myself."
The 51-year-old actress then blasted the Duggars for protecting their eldest child.
"These parents are wrong. There's no way you can say this as parents -- you're wrong," Underwood said. "Families got to protect families and don't rationalize violation."
In the first part of Kelly's sit-down interview with the "19 Kids and Counting" stars on Wednesday, the Duggar parents explained that Josh had confessed to them when he was 14 that he had inappropriately touched the girls while they slept.
"He said he had improperly touched some of our daughters," Jim Bob told Kelly Wednesday. "He said he was just curious about girls and he had gone in and touched them over their clothes when they were sleeping."
After a third incident, the family said they finally sought outside help and went to the police months after the first incident occurred.
When questioned about why they waited so long to involve the authorities, the Duggar parents said they visited a juvenile facility and had been told the success rate was poor there.
"There was so much grief in our hearts. I think, as parents, we felt, 'We're failures,'" Michelle said. "You know, here we tried to raise our kids to do what's right -- to know what's right ... We were devastated."
Two of the girls who were touched, Jill and Jessa Duggar, will appear tonight in the second part of Kelly's sit-down with the family. Josh and the girls received counseling and they say the abuse has not happened since then.
In a preview, Jessa told Kelly, "I do want to speak up in his defense against people who are calling him a child molester or a pedophile or a rapist, some people are saying. I'm like, that is so overboard and a lie, really. I mean, people get mad at me for saying that but I am like, I can say this, you know? I was one of the victims."
While Underwood believes that the Duggars' interview only hurts their image more, she said it has helped the world to "see what happens to people when they're in some type of family structure when the people you're supposed to trust {and] to protect you seem to be the co-conspirator in your violation, seem to rationalize sexual assault and molestation."
