‘I feared I’d be killed’: Erin Molan tells of horrific abuse from a man she dated
Erin Molan has bravely spoken publicly for the first time of her harrowing experience with domestic violence. Warning: Graphic
Warning: Distressing details
Radio and television personality Erin Molan has told for the first time of her harrowing experiences with domestic violence.
Molan recalls many “worst” moments, but the one she remembers most acutely is the night she had her head kicked in.
“He came in drunk and dragged me out of bed and started stamping his foot into my head over and over and over,” she recounted to The Sunday Telegraph.
“I was lying on the floor screaming and normally if I screamed really loudly he would stop because neighbours would hear. But that time he just kept going and going and it felt like my skull was going to crack open.”
Molan opened up about the horrific violence in an exclusive interview with The Sunday Telegraph. Read more details in the full interview here.
“One time he smashed a bottle over my head,” she says. “Another time I was terrified he’d throw me off a balcony. Once I ran to hide in my car and he got a rubbish bin and started smashing it against the windscreen and I feared I would be killed by glass shattering over me.
“Another time he covered my face with a pillow so I couldn’t breathe. I was crying for my mum. I really thought he would kill me.”
Molan said she could not publicly discuss the abuse while her beloved dad, Senator Jim Molan, was alive because she didn’t want to break his heart, but now she wants others to know what she went through.
As Molan reasons, she can’t ask others to talk about deeply personal issues on her Sydney radio show or Sky News program and not do the same herself.
“I’m not sharing my story because I want to. My preference would be for this part of my life to never be shared but with every single death I see in this space, a part of me wonders whether I could have made a difference,” she says.
“Could my experience have made these beautiful, innocent women feel less alone, less ashamed, less scared and could that have been the tiny thing that may have empowered them to ask for help, the thing that might have helped to save their lives?”
And while it’s confronting for her to speak out, Molan wants things to change, not just for her generation but for her daughter’s.
As she says: “I want to worry about my daughter’s first boyfriend breaking her heart, not her bones.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing family violence, phone 1800 737 732.