NATHALIE SIMARD TELLS ABOUT YEARS OF ABUSE!

Quebec star Nathalie Simard details years of abuse in paid interview
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at 22:39 on May 26, 2005, EST.
By ROSS MAROWITS

MONTREAL (CP) - Former child star Nathalie Simard broke a 25-year silence Thursday by recounting the repeated sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her manager, disgraced entertainment czar Guy Cloutier.

In an hour-long interview, the singer detailed seven years of abuse that began when she was 11, and expressed her disbelief in Cloutier's professions of remorse.

"I don't believe him because he could have done it a lot earlier," she said in the interview on the Montreal-based TVA network, which donated $100,000 to a foundation Simard established to fight sexual abuse.

Cloutier was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison last December after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting Simard and another child, who has not been identified.

Simard approached police, who recorded Cloutier's confessions about the abuse, after she felt her life had reached a dead end.

Without that evidence, Simard doubts he would have been convicted. "He would have destroyed me."

Now a single mother, the singer tearfully explained how the years of abuse came flooding back to her when she bathed her young daughter. As she looked at the child, Simard said she imagined looking at herself, who was about the same age when the abuse began.

While she wished Cloutier had received a longer sentence, Simard said no amount of punishment could restore what he stole from her.

"I don't think there is a sentence that will give me back my childhood."

Simard went to court this week to get a judge to lift the publication ban on her identity as Cloutier's victim. She launched a $1.2-million civil suit against Cloutier and hired respected journalist Michel Vastel to write her autobiography.

Years of shame, guilt and fear prevented her from reporting the abuse to police earlier, she said.

"I was afraid of repercussions," Simard said, referring to the music careers of Cloutier, herself and her older brother, Rene.

Simard denied that she ever sought money from Cloutier to buy her silence.

"I never blackmailed him," she twice said emphatically. Cloutier gave Simard $1.3 million before the criminal charges were laid, including a $5,000-a-month salary and a $400,000 farm.

Cloutier launched her singing career when she was a child and went on to make numerous records and win a series of awards.

"I thought that if I spoke out, all our lives would be destroyed the next day. So I kept silent about the crimes that were done to me."

Simard said she endured the pain alone, refusing to tell anyone about the abuse, including her parents.

From the very beginning, she said, Cloutier threatened her. During one encounter, she said he grabbed her by the throat and warned her not to speak out.

The sexual pattern of abuse included frequent sexual contact in cars, hotels, his condo, chalet and on foreign trips. Some took place while Cloutier's wife was asleep in the adjoining bedroom.

"He said he would teach me everything about sex," she recounted.

Cloutier controlled all aspects of her life and criticized her weight as she hit puberty, then sexually assaulted her and complimented her physique.

Simard said she confused the sex for love, acknowledging that she wrote love letters to Cloutier when she was about 16 years old.

"I was in love with him," she said. "I am ashamed of that but I understand it now. It was disgusting what he did to me.

"I thought he was in love with me."

Trauma from the abuse affected her relationships with men. While she still hopes to find love, Simard said she fears nobody will be willing to take her on because of the baggage of abuse she carries.

Despite her initial fears, Simard said breaking her silence has been completely liberating.

She urged viewers to have confidence in the justice system and pleaded with victims to get psychological help and speak out against their abusers.

"We have to wake up to this enormous problem in our society," she said, staring straight at the camera.

"It doesn't make sense that we are breaking the lives of our children."


©The Canadian Press, 2005

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