Rebekah Vardy speaks about growing up in a ‘cult’

British celebrity Rebekah Vardy is speaking out about the horrors she endured while growing up in what she now says was a “cult”.

She’s a media personality, popular WAG and mother of five, and now Rebekah Vardy is speaking out about the trauma she endured while growing up as a Jehovah's Witness - an experience she now likens to being n a “cult”.

The 41-year-old media personality, who’s married to English football player Jamie Vardy, has dug deep into her painful past in a documentary for Britain’s Channel 4.

She also took on the role of a reporter for the documentary, interviewing some of her fellow former Jehovah’s Witnesses and attempting to confront the movement at its headquarters in Essex.

“I call it a cult,” she told The Mail on Sunday.

“People are manipulated, brainwashed, it’s coercive behaviour and it is handed down from generation to generation. Once you’re in it, it’s so hard to see the bigger picture, which is that it’s wrong and immoral.”

She went on to call it “dangerous”.

Rebekah Vardy has spoken about her traumatic childhood. Picture: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

She revealed that during her childhood there were no birthdays or Christmases. Books and television programs were censored – if there was a swear word the TV was instantly turned off. She was not allowed to have other children over to her home to play, and would be removed from school assembly.

“At school we used to get dragged out of assembly because we couldn’t sing the hymns or be present for any reference to religion, to Christian beliefs,” she said.

“If it was someone’s birthday, and everyone was singing ‘Happy Birthday to You’, that was the same, we had to leave. It was humiliating. Mortifying.”

Jamie Lomas, Georgia Toffolo, Rebekah Vardy, Vanessa White and Stanley Johnson on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!'

“Elders” judged her and her extended family and could cast people out of their community. She said this led to her mother hushing up news that Rebekah had been sexually abused from the age of 12. She believes her mother kept things quiet because she was afraid of shame being brought onto the family.

“I told my mum about the abuse that I was experiencing, and she cried. But she didn’t believe me.”

She said numerous members of the Jehovah’s Witness community were told and by the time Rebekah was a teenager, the group called a meeting.

“It was put to me I’d misinterpreted [as] abuse a form of affection. I knew that I hadn’t. I was well aware of what was right and what was wrong. And it was explained that I could potentially bring shame on my family.”

She said she was “basically manipulated into believing it wasn’t the best thing to do to take it any further and take it to the police. The impact on me was wild”.

Rebekah with husband Jamie Vardy. Picture: Mike Marsland/Mike Marsland/WireImage

“I just blamed myself,’ she said. “I felt I hadn’t been good enough, I deserved it. It all goes back to that childhood pattern of seeking perfection.”

It had a huge impact on her, and by the age of 14 she had attempted suicide. She was made homeless after an argument with her family at 15, couch-surfing until she picked up a job that earned her enough money to rent a room in a B&B.

She said she hasn’t spoken to her mother in seven years.

The documentary comes several months after last’s years globally infamous court case, in which she was sued by fellow WAG Coleen Rooney, who accused her of leaking secrets from her private Instagram account.

Rebekah at Royal Courts of Justice, Strand in London in the case against Coleen Rooney. Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

The court found that Coleen’s statements were “substantially true”, and Rebekah lost, receiving a legal bill worth about $5.6 million.

The documentary airs on Tuesday local time.

Originally published as Rebekah Vardy speaks about growing up in a ‘cult’