Ozzy Osbourne has told London's Daily Mirror that he was sexually molested repeatedly as a child and suffered emotional effects from the abuse long into adulthood. The rocker, who grew up in a working-class neighborhood of Birmingham, England, said that two older youths began abusing him after school when he was 11, and it continued on a regular basis. He told the newspaper that he was afraid to report the incidents to his parents and only this year began to come to terms with the emotional effects of the abuse. "Everything when you are a kid affects you in later life," said Osbourne. "If you build a wall with rocky foundations you are going to have a pretty unstable wall when it's finished."

Submitted on: 12/02/03