5 things to know about the late Michael Reagan: 'I was a chosen one'
2. Experienced traumatic sexual abuse during childhood: 'I was going to Hell'
While Reagan was facing challenges dealing with his parents' divorce and feeling rejected because of his adoption, he was sexually abused when he was 8 years old by a man whose identity he never revealed.
In his 1988 memoir On the Outside Looking In, which is now out of print, Reagan first went public about the abuse he kept secret for decades. The perpetrator, who worked at an after-school day camp program in Beverly Hills, groomed the young Reagan amid his childhood pain, gaining his trust before molesting him three times per week over the course of the school year.
The man forced Michael to pose nude for photos and warned him they would be shown to his mother if he ever told anyone about the abuse, which plunged him into years of shame and damaged his relationships with others, including God.
"I will never forget that photograph, because it changed my life," Michael remembered. "I knew I had to get away from my mother. I had to get away from God. I thought God had abandoned me, and I knew then I was going to Hell. I was going to do everything I could on my own recognizance. I wanted to get there earning my own way."
Reagan consequently suffered with intense feelings of sexual confusion as he grew older.
"I didn't know if I was heterosexual or homosexual," Michael said. "I was fearful saying anything to anybody, because the older you get, the worse it gets. [When I was in high school], I would steal money from my Dad's wallet on Friday nights, drive to downtown LA and buy prostitutes to prove to myself that I was heterosexual."
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com
