Footballer Dele Alli has revealed he was sexually abused when he was six years old.
The footballer, 27, told Gary Neville’s YouTube channel The Overlap: “At six I was molested.”
Alli, who returned to Everton in April, opened up about his difficult childhood.
“And then I was sent to Africa to learn discipline and then I was sent back.
“At seven I started smoking and then at eight I started selling drugs.
“An older person told me they wouldn’t stop a kid on a bike so I’d ride around with my football and underneath I’d have drugs.
“At 11 I was hung off a bridge… by a guy from the next estate. A man.
“By 12 I was adopted but from then it was like I was adopted by an amazing family.”
Alli also said he entered a rehab facility for six weeks in recent months for an addiction to sleeping tablets and excessive drinking.
“It’s been going on for a long time without me realising it, I was doing [it] to numb the feelings I had – I didn’t realise I was doing it for that purpose,” he said.
“It’s probably a problem not only I have, I think it’s going around more than people realise in football.
“I’ve definitely abused them too much. It got really bad at some points and I didn’t understand how bad it was but I was never dealing with the root of the problem – when I was growing up the traumas I had, the feelings I had and I tried to deal with it all by myself,” he said.
“I lost myself for a few years.”