Kevin Gates sat down with Shannon Sharpe on the latest episode of Club Shay Shay and spoke candidly about being sexually assaulted during his childhood.
While revisiting his 2021 appearance on Hotboxin’ with Mike Tyson, where he first revealed he had been molested, Gates confirmed that the abuse happened when he was a teenager. When Sharpe asked whether he had been threatened into keeping quiet about it, Gates replied, “He did,” before adding, “Yeah, he outta here.”
The moment was followed by an uneasy pause, after which Sharpe said, “I guess I’ll leave that alone.”
Sharpe later asked about the abuser’s cause of death, and Gates once again repeated, “He outta here,” then said with a smile, “He’ll never do that to anybody again.”
Reflecting on the experience, Gates said he believes he “broke generational curses” by ensuring there were no more victims and by opening up honest conversations with his own children.
“I don’t wanna say too much, but I really broke generational curses with that situation because people that came before me, they was raped,” he said. “And it created the space for me to have with my children to where my children know, don’t nobody never touch you, not even me. I had these open conversations with my children, they are equipped. I created a space for them to be able to tell their dad anything.”
Gates also shared that speaking openly about his abuse has led to emotional moments with other men, some of whom have hugged him and cried while talking to him at the gym. “I created a space, and I tell them, ‘You was vulnerable,’” he said. “Then, we have built ourselves into machines to where we can protect the inner child.”
