Aaron Hernandez Was Reportedly Sexually Abused as a Child

Since his suicide, there has been intense interest in the veiled but tragic life of former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez. The Boston Globe‘s Spotlight team composed a six-part series that explores the heartbreak that accompanied Hernandez and his family. The first installment dropped on Saturday.

In the piece, Aaron’s brother, Jonathan, said he and their siblings “were often beaten and brutalized” by their father. Jonathan then described an incident where he attempted to call the police on his father, but the fear caused by his father’s threats stopped him.

“I picked up the phone once to call, to seek help. And his response was, ‘Call them.’ And he handed me the phone, and he said, ‘I’m going to beat you even harder, you and your brother and they’re going to have to pull me off of you when they knock down the door,” Jonathan recounted. 

Jonathan also disclosed that Aaron was sexually abused when he was a boy. He became aware of this when they were both adults, but declined to go into detail. Aaron’s lawyer also mentioned he suffered from child sexual abuse. 

Hernandez was doing a life sentence without parole after being found guilty of murder in the first degree for the 2013 death of his friend Odin Lloyd. On April 19, 2017, he was found hung by a bed sheet in his prison cell. Hernandez was 27.