The legendary guitarist opened up about the horrific sexual abuse he endured as a child. Photo / AP
The legendary guitarist opened up about the horrific sexual abuse he endured as a child. Photo / AP
Warning: mention of sexual abuse
Legendary guitarist Carlos Santana has revealed he has forgiven the man who sexually abused him when he was a kid.
The Mexican-American rock star reflected on his past, particularly on his traumatic childhood, and revealed that his journey to finding peace and acceptance had been “really spiritual”.
“I learned to look at everyone who ever went out of their way to hurt me, demean me or make me feel like less, like they’re 5 or 6 years old, and I’m able to look at them with understanding and compassion,” he shared with People magazine.
“For example, this person who abused me sexually, instead of sending him to hell forever, I visualised him like a child, and behind him there was a lot of light,” he said.
“So I can send him to the light or send him to hell knowing that if I send him to hell, I’m going to go with him. But if I send him to the light, then I’m going to go with him also.”
Carlos Santana and bassist David Brown perform with the group Santana at the Woodstock Music Festival in Bethel, New York. Photo / Getty Images
Santana, 75, confessed that shifting his perspective allowed him to forgive his abuser.
“There’s this saying, ‘Hurt people hurt people.’ It’s my pain. It did happen to me. But if you open your hands, and you let it go, then you don’t feel that anymore,” he said.
Santana’s revelation comes just a few days before the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of his new documentary, Carlos, which sheds light on the iconic musician’s life and his successful music career.
The guitarist brought up his childhood abuse for the first time in an interview in 2000.
Santana revealed to Rolling Stone that he was abused “almost every day” between the ages of 10 and 12 by a man from the US who would travel across the Mexican border and bring him presents. The abuse eventually stopped when Santana fell in love with a girl, which caused his abuser to get jealous.
Carlos Santana performing live in 1970. Photo / Getty Images
“I looked at him for the first time for who he was: a very sick person,” he shared at the time.
“You want to get angry with yourself for not knowing better. The mind has a very insidious way of making you feel guilty: you’re the guilty party, shame on you, you’re the one who brought this on yourself.”
In an interview with the Guardian in 2014, Santana revealed that his abuser was a tourist and had become pals with his parents.
A moment that weighed on the musician for years was when his mother confronted him about the abuse in front of his brothers and sisters.
“I was the victim, but they were hearing that I made it happen,” he said. “That stayed on my mind for a long, long time – that she didn’t have the compassion to say, ‘I feel so bad that I didn’t read the signs.’”
