Grace Knight: I survived child abuse

At the height of her giddy showbiz career, indie pop diva Grace Knight personified the excesses of the Aussie ’80s as the ultimate confident, sexy rock chick embracing every high note of the rock’n’roll dream.

And it was in the public spotlight that the damaged young star of the chart-topping band Eurogliders found a safe hiding place from a dark, troubled past and shocking family secret.

Now, three decades later, a wiser, more reflective Grace is back in the spotlight – this time firmly as herself – launching a brutally honest tell-all memoir that lifts the lid on the sordid secret which robbed her of her childhood.

‘The Grace Knight fans saw dancing on stage like a manic ballerina, putting on a front of absolute, ultimate confidence, was no more than a cardboard cut-out,’ says the now successful 54-year-old jazz singer, whose autobiography Pink Suit for a Blue Day documents her sexual abuse at the hands of her father.

‘I was never the self-assured songbird that performed up there, but a troubled, worthless woman burdened with the legacy of childhood sexual abuse.’

Speaking out
Now, in a poignant, inspiring, confronting, yet surprisingly funny account of her years growing up in the UK, Grace is breaking her silence to encourage other victims of abuse to talk about the issue.

‘There have been many times in the past two years where I’ve stopped writing to ask myself if I’m ready to expose such a private part of my life,’ she says.
‘But in the end, my reasons for doing it were always greater than my reasons for stopping and I realised the things I found most confronting were the very things I needed to talk about.

‘Now, coming out the other side, and having slain the dragon, I’ve been compelled to keep going, telling my story as honestly as I can for all the people like me nurturing this legacy.’

A stellar career
Grace first attracted international attention in 1984 when the band she formed with Bernie Lynch released their biggest hit, Heaven (Must Be There). Reaching number two on the Aussie charts, and later 21 in the US, the song catapulted the Eurogliders to fame and their next album Absolutely went on to become a top 10 hit launching three top 10 singles.

Yet behind the stage persona of the band’s frontline vocalist remained a deeply troubled young woman struggling with the fallout of her upbringing, where her violent, alcoholic opera singer father Charlie sexually and emotionally abused her.

‘My grandfather made albums, my nanna was a singer, so performing was always in my genes,’ says Grace.
‘So, as a little girl I’d perform songs for my dad and his drunken friends as a diversion to stop him beating my mother.’

But, by the age of five, Grace was also a target. ‘For all that was going on around me, the violence and screaming matches, the shame I carried and the beatings I received, nothing was more soul destroying and petrifying than waking up to find Dad leaning over me in the dead of night,’ she writes.

‘The thought of screaming out for help was not an option: Doing so would have placed Mum in the line of fire... when he finished his parting words were: “Tell anyone about this and I’ll splatter your face across that wall.”’

Nursing her dark secret, Grace’s anxiety manifested itself in schoolyard bullying and she also became violent. ‘In school, I couldn’t concentrate and spent most of my time day-dreaming of a better life,’ she says.

A star is born
That chance came when an agent spotted the young songbird in a talent quest and signed her up for a gig in Dubai. Later that year, Grace sang her passage across the world on a cruise ship bound for Australia.

‘I spent the next 15 years estranged from my father,’ recalls Grace, who later co-founded Eurogliders with partner Bernie.
‘We were living the dream – the sort of life we thought rock stars should have with all the trappings. Yet even with a new life and new stage persona where I could pretend to be whatever a pop star should be, inside I felt abject worthlessness.’

Numbing her pain with drugs, Grace struggled with intimacy – her brief marriage to Bernie floundering after just 11 months. Later, after a second failed relationship and baby son, an old ghost returned to haunt her.

‘My son Jacky was 11 when he said he wanted to meet his grandfather,’ says Grace. ‘And though I was still very angry, I didn’t want to deny him that right.’

After years of pretending the abuse hadn’t happened, Grace and her son travelled to her father’s new home in Greece.

‘Staring my demons in the eye wasn’t at all like I’d imagined, and I realised as an adult woman, my father was flawed and confronting his own demons too,’ she says.

‘And though I never dreamt love or forgiveness would come into it, I was able to forgive myself – which allowed me to forgive my dad – and through that redemption I was finally able to move on.
‘I ended up having a wonderful relationship with my father before he died and realised I actually loved him.’

Grace’s journey of forgiveness and love is one she hopes will now help other victims heal.
‘So many people walk around with this legacy, yet it’s still taboo in our culture,’ she says.
‘I hope telling my story will help to change that.’

Today, with a fifth jazz album under her belt, the singer has finally found peace.
‘I’m incredibly happy,’ Grace says. ‘If I could go back, there’s not a single thing about my life I’d change because everything that happens shapes the person you eventually become.
‘It’s what makes coming out the other end even sweeter.’

By: Megan Norris
Photos: Gina Milicia

Grace Knight’s autobiography Pink Suit for a Blue Day (New Holland, $29.95) will be available in bookstores from 1 September 2010.


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