Singer Rina Sawayama Reveals She Was ‘Groomed’ By A Teacher At 17

Rina Sawayama is opening up about a traumatic period of her life.

During an interview on the BBC Three for the BBC World Service’s online series, In Conversation, the singer revealed a shocking reality that she says informed her 2022 album, Hold the Girl: she was “groomed” as a teenager. She opened up:

“This is the first time I’m talking about this, but essentially, through doing sex therapy — sex and relationship therapy — I realized that really something that I thought was a relationship that I had, when I was 17, was actually I was groomed.”

Ugh, this poor woman… Even more shocking? Her groomer was a TEACHER at her school:

“It came to light that, that was what was happening in my school, basically, it was a school teacher.”

WTF.

Related: Devastatingly Beautiful Final Sinéad O’Connor Song Debuts On The BBC

As for why she’s opening up about it now, well, the 33-year-old sort of just recently came to the realization. The Eye for an Eye singer explained:

“Why that realization happened in my 30s was because I was finally his age.”

Gross… Her groomer was well over a decade older than her. And finally hitting that age made her realize just how young 17-year-olds really were…

“Seventeen to me is a child, you’re in school, you have no autonomy most of the time, and especially if you’re in a school setting, if a school teacher is coming on to you, that’s an abuse of power. I didn’t realize that until I was his age.”

Rina said the breakthrough in therapy led to two tracks in particular off her record: Your Age and Hold the Girl. She reflected:

“I remember distinctly how uncomfortable that made me, but I didn’t put the two and two together. And it was through this very intense form of therapy, which I feel so lucky to be able to have access to, that I was able to come to terms with that, and it completely broke my whole world apart.”

The John Wick: Chapter 4 star explained that following the revelation of what had happened at her school, SHE somehow became the target:

“I was so badly slut-shamed, that I developed so much shame around my sexuality, and lost completely my sense of self, I detached from my skin like inside, I don’t know how to describe it. But I just felt so afraid of things. And I’d have anxiety attacks.”

How completely awful, but sadly an all too common phenomenon known as victim shaming. However, working through the trauma and pouring it into her music proved to be an “incredible” thing for the Japanese-British artist. She explained:

“Writing that album was one of the hardest things, but also when I finished it, it was one of the most incredible experiences. And now it makes me so happy when I see especially like women or femmes in the audience connecting to it because I haven’t talked about this in specifics. I’ve just said it’s about a period in my life when I was younger, but I know the truth and when I look out to the audience, and I see femmes or women connecting to it, I’m like maybe you know what I’m talking about, maybe you’re feeling it right now.”

What an inspiration. We’re so happy she was able to get to such a powerful place. As for what’s up next, Rina doesn’t plan on revisiting anymore trauma on her next album:

“I don’t know what I’m gonna write about yet. But I would love a day where I can just write a song that’s just about love or sex, I’m getting there.”

She has our full support. What are your thoughts, Perezcious readers?? Let us know in the comments down below.

[Image via MEGA/WENN]