Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams broke down as she discussed her relationship with her estranged father.
Appearing on The Diary of a CEO podcast, the actress discussed her "traumatic" past while fighting back tears.
"Well, I, as a young child before the age of, like, 8, had a traumatic relationship with my dad," Williams said of the relationship that left her unable to sleep at night.
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Though the actress didn't want to go into too much detail to protect her siblings, she said she didn't realise the things that were happening to her were wrong.
"I had that feeling of impending doom and I didn't know how to make that go away," she told podcast host Steven Bartlett.
The Game of Thrones star explained that only after a teacher intervened was she able to open up about what was happening in her home life.
"When I was about 8, there was quite a complex string of events that happened, but basically it had met its peak and I was at school and I was really struggling."
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After that, a tearful Maisie said that although everything was out in the open, she didn't want to be taken away from her father aged just 8 years old and she likened her experience to being in a cult, saying she was "indoctrinated in a way".
"All your problems don't just go away, you still care a lot about that person, or the pain that led to those very, very poor decisions," she added.
"It made me more interested in the guy. What could make you mistreat your own children? What happened to you as a kid? Did you pull the legs off bugs? Did you learn all this?"
Reporter, Digital Spy
Harriet is a freelance news writer specialising in TV and movies at Digital Spy.
A horror enthusiast, she joined Digital Spy after working on her own horror website, reviewing films and focusing largely on feminism in the genre.
In her spare time, Harriet paints and produces mixed-media art. She graduated from the University of Kingston with a BA in fine art, where she specialised in painting. She also has an MA in journalism from Birkbeck University.
