Inside Rebekah Vardy’s tough childhood and fractured relationship with her mother

Rebekah Vardy first opened up this week about her troubled childhood growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness and the sexual abuse she endured at a young age.

The WAG, 41, recently described the moment she told her mother Alison Nicholson that she had been sexually assaulted at the age of 12 – but she didn’t believe her.

Rebekah has a broken relationship with her mother, who divorced the star’s father, Carlos Miranda, when she was 11.

It is known that in 2016 Alison was not even present at the wedding of her daughter with 36-year-old football player Jamie Vardy.

So here MailOnline takes a look at Rebekah’s turbulent family dynamic:

This week Rebekah described the moment she told her mother she had been sexually assaulted at the age of 12, but she didn’t believe her.

She first spoke of her experiences growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness, telling that she attempted suicide at age 14 before being shunned by her family.

She claims in one Channel 4 documentary that the religion did not support her as a child through sexual abuse.

Rebekah said, “I told my mom about the abuse I was experiencing. She cried, but didn’t believe me.

“From the age of about 12 I was abused and instead of being supported I was blamed, manipulated into believing that going to the police wasn’t the best thing to do.”

Speaking to Good Morning Britain, she added that she has “no relationship” with her mother, having been evicted at the age of 16.

She said, “The break in our relationship was the abuse and not being believed.”

Ms Vardy added that she did ‘crazy’ things as a teenager but, looking back, it was no surprise given what had happened to her.

She grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness in Norwich, Norfolk, but left at the age of 15, after being ‘shamed’ for the sexual abuse and shunned by the community next to relatives following her parents’ divorce.

The mother of five, Vardy, said she was sexually assaulted by a person in the community between the ages of 11 and 15, which she claimed was covered up by “elders,” senior male religious leaders.

When Vardy was 11, she said, her family was shunned by the community following her parents’ divorce.

Vardy said relatives and friends were forbidden to associate with her family, which added to her “resentment” against religion and her parents.

“I think my real aversion to religion started there, that I felt so bad, so different.”

It is known that in 2016, Rebekah’s mother Alison did not even attend her daughter’s wedding with 36-year-old football player Jamie Vardy.

Asked why they hadn’t attended her mother, Alison said at the time: “We’d rather not say why, even though it’s clear people are now starting to wonder why the bride’s mother isn’t with her 34-year-old daughter. wedding.’

“I can understand people being interested in them as a couple, but we want our privacy and don’t want to get involved in any publicity.

“Things are changing and while there may be issues, we don’t want to comment on why we didn’t go.”

Alison and her husband Iain spent the day 130 miles away from the festivities back home in Oxfordshire.

Mrs Nicholson married first husband John Miranda, 63 – Becky’s father in 1978 in Norwich.

But later they divorced and each went on to marry again.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are a Christian denomination with approximately 8.5 million followers worldwide who believe that the destruction of the world is imminent.

They enforce a strict moral code on members, including that homosexuality is a sin, and punish those who deviate from their beliefs by ‘shutting them out’ and banishing them from the community.

In the documentary, Vardy returns to Norwich, where several members of her family still live as Jehovah’s Witnesses and with whom she has had little contact since leaving the community.

She says, “I grew up in a strict and controlling religious organization.

“What happened to me during my childhood still touches me every day.

“I told countless members of my family, the Jehovah’s Witness community, and they called a meeting, I think I was about 15, it was suggested that I had misinterpreted the abuse as a form of affection.

“I knew I hadn’t, I knew very well what was right and wrong, and I was explained that I could disgrace my family, and I was basically manipulated into believing that it wasn’t the best thing to do to take it further and take it to the police.

“It’s hard to understand how I survived.”

Vardy recalls a childhood without Christmas or birthday celebrations, in keeping with the religion’s beliefs, with Bible studies and visits to the Kingdom Hall, the religious center of worship for Jehovah’s Witnesses.

As a child, Vardy said she believed she would die in Armageddon if she wasn’t “perfect” and recalls “disturbing” images she was shown of the end of the world, which still give her nightmares as an adult.

When visiting the Kingdom Hall where her congregation met and where her grandfather was an elder, Vardy said: “You should do things to keep Jehovah happy, because he was always watching.

“Who you talked to, how you talked, how you dressed, how you kept yourself, how you lived every part of your life, and we were told that if we didn’t pray enough, bad things would happen to us.”

Vardy said she always knew her family was different from an early age, their beliefs caused her to be bullied and bullied at school.

At home, her parents’ relationship had a rocky relationship, with elders regularly visiting their homes to “calm down” quarrels.

During the documentary, Vardy also meets former members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, including a victim of child abuse and the mother of a man who committed suicide after being expelled from the organization.

Vardy described the experience of revisiting her past as an “emotional rollercoaster.”

She told reporters, “I had closed Pandora’s box and didn’t want to go back on it.

“I went into this thinking this was going to be pretty easy and actually, wow, it was a real challenge.

“It was an emotional rollercoaster.

“I’ve never been more open and personal about my experiences, but also to discover other people who’ve gone through similar experiences, gone through similar things, if not worse, and to hear their stories, I just think they’re incredibly brave.” to be prepared to speak up about something.’

When asked if making the documentary had put an end to what she had experienced as a child, Vardy said, “Absolutely. I think this chapter is closed.

‘Actually, it already was, but I really wanted to do this when Channel 4 approached me, because I was fascinated by it.

“Knowing I had a voice, knowing my voice could help and hopefully more people will come forward and share their experiences.”

Rebekah Vardy: Jehovah’s Witnesses and Me, is tonight at 10pm on Channel 4.