WNBA All-Star Breanna Stewart: ‘I was molested for years’ as a child

Breanna Stewart, writing in an essay published by The Players’ Tribune on Monday, said she was sexually abused for two years as a child.

The Seattle Storm All Star and four-time NCAA Final Four most outstanding player with Connecticut said the abuse took place at a relative’s house where she would often sleep. Her abuser — an adult male — lived there, Stewart wrote.

“I don’t know how to say this part. I haven’t told many people. I’m not the most vulnerable person — I don’t talk about my feelings much — so this is uncomfortable,” Stewart wrote.

“I was molested for years.”

The alleged incidents — one of which occurred when she was 9, she wrote — often took place at night when everyone else in the house was asleep. “He’d touch me and try to get me to touch him,” Stewart wrote. “Sometimes I would try to pull my arm away, but I wasn’t as strong. I was just a kid.”

Stewart eventually told her mother, she wrote, and the man was arrested. “My dad later told me that the guy had confessed everything to the police,” she wrote.

Stewart said she has difficulty talking about the incidents and hasn’t told many people, but was inspired by the #metoo movement — her essay is titled, “Me Too” — to share her story.

“Our experiences are different. How we cope is different. But our voices matter,” Stewart wrote. “I also thought about what my dad has said to me more than once: ‘It’s not a dirty little secret. When you’re comfortable with it, and when you’re comfortable being open about it, you could save someone’s life.”

“That’s why I’m writing this. This is bigger than me.”

charles.schilken@latimes.com

Twitter: @chewkiii