By Joseph Staszewski
Kenny Anderson, the former Archbishop Molloy and NBA star, recently revealed he was sexually abused as a child and plans to identify his attackers in his autobiography, which is slated to be released next year.
Anderson, 42, was a participant in an off-Broadway play last month called the “Penis Monologues” along with several other former NBA players to discus the ways that part of the anatomy can create problems. The candid discussion of sexuality led him to open up and tell the audience briefly that he was molested by two separate people at the ages of 8 and 9, according to the blog SB Nation’s David Roth, who was in the audience.
Anderson said he later chose to reveal more about the incidents to SB Nation in an attempt to help others.
“They see Kenny Anderson got molested and he’s talking about it. Now people gone come out and maybe be able to tell their story,” Anderson told Matt Ufford, of SBN.com, in a sit-down interview.
Anderson said that in the first instance a “neighborhood guy on the block” molested him in Queens before the family moved to LeFrak City in Corona. A year later, someone in the youth basketball community also sexually abused him, he said. Anderson said the abuse did not involve or occur at Archbishop Molloy or during his time playing travel ball with the New York Gauchos and Riverside Church.
The former Stanners standout said he felt he coped with it better than others might have.
“I don’t think it killed me like it killed other kids,” Anderson said in the interview. “You can really take a lot out of a kid for the rest of their lives.”
Anderson, who has eight children by five women, spent 14 years in the NBA after being drafted second overall by the New Jersey Nets in 1991 out of Georgia Tech. He filed for bankruptcy in 2005 and was fired from his coaching job at David Posnack Jewish Day School in Florida after he was arrested on a driving under the influence charge in May, the Palm Beach Post reported.
Anderson, still adjusting to life after his playing days, is scheduled to release his autobiography, “Instructions Not Included,” in March. He told the New York Post that he does not plan to confront either of his abusers, but will reveal their identities and more details of the events in his book. He noted that it hurt him not to be able to speak openly about being molested until now, but he thinks his fame, career and money made things easier on him.
“I became a successful basketball player. That’s what covered it,” Anderson told the Post. “But imagine if I wasn’t? If I was an average Joe?”
