Marcus Mumford, lead singer for the British folk pop band Mumford & Sons, released a solo single titled “Cannibal,” describing a sexual assault he suffered at the age of six.
Mumford’s single tells the tale he has kept quiet for so long: “‘I can still taste you and I hate it/That wasn’t a choice in the mind of a child and you knew it,” Mumford sings. He’s expressed he had “demons [he] danced with for a long time in isolation.” During an interview with GQ’s Zach Baron, Mumford said, “I lived most of my adult life up until just really recently in, like, layers of shame.”
Marcus Mumford reveals he was sexually abused aged six https://t.co/LEwK5pMf9k
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) August 10, 2022
“Like lots of people — and I’m learning more and more about this as we go and as I play it to people —I was sexually abused as a child,” Mumford said to GQ. About the source of the abuse, he said, “Not by family and not in the church, which might be some people’s assumption. But I hadn’t told anyone about it for 30 years.”
Mumford expressed the deep pain he seemed to feel during his years of silence. “But I just got kind of addicted to shame, layers and layers of shame, which is why I feel now like I’ve done lots of figuring that out,” he added to GQ.
He shifted the conversation away from the trauma to how he is doing today after being forthcoming about what he endured as a child. “And now being able to pick those apart a little bit and, like, chip away at the layers of it is why I feel kind of free, more free than I have in a long time,” Mumford said, according to the magazine. (RELATED: ‘Witchcraft’ And ‘Sexual Services’: 11 Adults Arrested For Allegedly Operating Child Sex, Killing Dogs)
‘I hadn’t told anyone in 30 years’: Marcus Mumford reveals he was sexually abused aged 6 https://t.co/wrvGiqVgvB
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) August 10, 2022
“That thing that happened when I was six, that was the first of a string of really unusual, unhealthy sexual experiences at a really early age. And for some reason, and I can’t really understand why, I didn’t become a perpetrator of sexual abuse — although I’ve done my fair share of c**tish behavior,” Mumford told GQ. He said the first time he discussed the abuse in therapy he vomited.
Mumford’s own mother learned about his abuse through his new song, and he proceeded to write the second track,”Grace,” about the conversation he had with her during that moment of truth, according to GQ.