Preloading

Does This Survivor of Childhood Abuse Still See His Father?

Season 5 Episode 509
Aired on 05/23/2015 | CC tv-14
During the final season of The Oprah Winfrey Show, 200 men who had been molested as children came forward to film a powerful episode. Each one of them held a picture of himself at the age when he said he was first sexually abused. Chad Fletcher was in the audience that day, holding a picture of himself at age 7.

On the 2010 show, Chad told Oprah that he was sexually abused by his father, who only paid attention to Chad when he was being molested. Chad said the abuse went on for seven years, sometimes as often as four times a week.

When Oprah recently caught up with Chad, he told her what sharing his story on the show meant to him: "For me, it was, I mean, definitely one of the most powerful experiences I've had just because I was surrounded by men that I knew had been through the same thing as me. ... [It was] like we had known each other before, and, you know, none of us had ever met each other."

When Chad first met Oprah almost five years ago, he revealed that his mother was still married to his abusive father. A few months after Chad went public with his story, his mother and father separated. "I think her hearing it, you know, she was obviously a little upset, but I think it helped her realize because, after the show ... it went four years without talking to him," he says.

Today, Chad says his relationship with his mother is better than it's ever been...but what about his father? Watch as Chad tells Oprah how he learned to forgive his father, despite the fact that he never served jail time.

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