Maisie Williams is sharing details of her "traumatic" childhood, which is closely linked to her father's behavior.
The "Game of Thrones" star revisited her past during an appearance on "The Diary of a CEO" podcast, recalling her struggles and opening up about the pivotal point that came when she opened up to a teacher.
"As a young child before the age of 8, I had a traumatic relationship with my dad," Williams said.
"[That relationship] really consumed a lot of my childhood. Ever since I can remember I really struggled with sleeping, and I think a lot of the traumatic things that were happening, I didn't realize that they were wrong," she further described.
As a child, Williams, who is now 25, admitted her experiences left her feeling alienated from her peers.
"I would look around at other kids and wonder, Why don't they seem to understand this pain or dread or fear? Where does this joy — when does that come for me?" she continued.
Williams refrained from divulging too many details about her father, because "it affects my [four] siblings and my whole family" but she did reveal that she was 4 months old when her mother managed to "escape" her father.
"It was bad before that," Williams noted.
Things changed when Williams was 8 years old and a teacher began asking questions about her home life after discovering that the actor was hungry and not eating breakfast.
"They were asking the right questions. I had so many people who loved and cared about me so much, but I had never been asked the right questions where I could really say what was wrong," she said.
The school contacted Williams' mother, who arrived with her siblings after the exchange.
"It was really, really hard because I still wanted to fight and say, No! These things aren't bad! You're trying to take me away from my dad and that's wrong! Because I was like, indoctrinated in a way," she said, adding that it did admittedly feel good to get away from her father.
Years later, Williams said she had experienced a shift in perspective of her father and childhood. She no longer felt the need to take things that happened to her personally.
"If I wasn't there it would've been someone else," she said. "It's not because something is wrong with me that these things happened when I was a child."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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