Demi Moore Says She Was Raped At 15 By Man Who Paid Her Alcoholic Mother $500

While actress Demi Moore may be an A-list celebrity and a household name, her life wasn’t always full of glitz and glamour.

In her new memoir, “Inside Out,” the 56-year-old actress opened up about her troubled childhood, recalling being raised by an alcoholic mother who may have had a hand in facilitating her own daughter’s sexual assault.

Speaking to “Good Morning America” this week, Moore opened up about the traumatic experience. After her mother and the man she thought was her father (but who actually turned out not to be her biological dad) divorced, Moore said her mother would take her with her to bars so that they could get more attention from men. On one occasion, when Moore was only 15 years old, she returned home to find an older man that she and her mother knew waiting for her in their home, she explained. He’d gotten in because someone had given him a key to their apartment, and he raped her.

It was not until the man asked a single question — one that Moore called “cruel” — that she realized her mother had played a part: “How does it feel to be whored by your mother for $500?”

Realizing that her mother had been paid off was a “devastating betrayal,” Moore wrote in her book, according to "Good Morning America." But speaking to the outlet this week and being asked if she believed her mother really did explicitly sell access to her, Moore expressed doubt.

“I think, in my deep heart, no. I don't think it was a straightforward transaction,” she said. “But she still — she still did give him the access and put me in harm’s way.”

As Moore reportedly wrote in the book, she’d had a tumultuous time growing up with her mother, even before the sexual assault occurred. Before her parents split, both struggled with alcoholism and the family never lived in one place for too long.

Moore told “Good Morning America” that her mom tried to kill herself “many, many times,” and her book reveals that the first time it happened, Moore was only 12 years old, and had to try and save her mother’s life.

“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,” reads an excerpt.

Moore later found out that the man she grew up with wasn’t her biological father, which left her feeling “that [she] wasn't wanted, or that [she didn’t] deserve to be here,” she recalled.

Moore’s life changed forever when she dropped out of high school and moved to Hollywood to attempt to make a career for herself. She was flying “by the seat of her pants” then, she recalled to the outlet, but she landed a role on “General Hospital” at the age of 19 that launched her career.

However, it also launched a substance abuse problem; she began using cocaine and drinking to excess, and by the time she landed one of her most famous roles, in 1984’s “St. Elmo's Fire,” her problems had gotten so serious that the film’s producer and director pushed her into rehab before filming began.

It was another life-changing decision for Moore, she explained. She stayed sober for nearly 20 years, before breaking her sobriety during her relationship with ex-husband Ashton Kutcher. During that time, she experienced a miscarriage six months into a pregnancy, and she began drinking even more and taking Vicodin, according to The New York Times. After her health and her relationships all began to suffer, Moore went to rehab and began to rebuild her life; she began working seriously on her memoir soon after, the outlet reports.

“Inside Out,” Moore's first book, hits shelves on Sept. 24.