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Inside Christina Ricci’s ‘Chaotic’ Upbringing With Cult Leader Dad: ‘There Was Never Any Peace’
She has played plenty of spooky characters on screen, but Christina Ricci recently revealed the truly frightening truth about her real life. In the documentary Child Star, the 44-year-old shared that she grew up in a “chaotic” home under the tyranny of her dad, a one time primal scream therapist. “My father was a failed cult leader, and so he had all that same sort of, like, really crazy narcissism that goes along with someone wanting to run a cult,” the Wednesday actress, the youngest of four kids, said, adding, “He was very physically violent. There was never any peace in my house.”
After the family moved from California to New Jersey, Christina said she and her mother would head into NYC for auditions every day. “As soon as [that] started,” she said, “all that stopped, all the trouble, everything.” (Her parents split shortly afterward.)
The star said she found “peace” working on TV and movie sets. “I knew that nothing totally insane was about to happen,” she said. “Nobody was going to get really mad and pretend they were going to drive the car into a wall. For me, there was this refuge of emotional safety.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support.
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