During a recent interview with ABC News, YG opened up about being a sexual abuse survivor, revealing that most of the men he knows have had similar experiences. According to the rapper, he was assaulted at age 14 by an older woman. At the time, he saw this as a positive experience, but later realized he'd been assaulted.
YG first told the world he'd been abused in his song "2004," which he released earlier this year. “When I was young I got raped / By a b*tch that was twice my age / Picked me up from school / Took me to hers and got laid / Ever since that day I never looked at sh*t the same," he revealed on the vulnerable track.
This was the first YG's family had heart of the assault. “I kept it inside,” he admitted. “My family, first time hearing about that was when the record came out.”
YG "2004"
“90 percent of the people I played it for, the men, the males, they all got similar stories,” YG continued. “That was the conversation everybody was having. It was like, ‘Yeah, like I was sexually abused.’ And it’s like, ‘Yeah, but for us, we men, so it ain’t treated the same way.'”
He added that he was compelled to open up about the abuse he experienced to encourage others to do the same. "Everybody got their story, and that’s why I made the record,” he said. “To influence people to tell their stories. Especially coming from an artist, somebody like me, it’s unexpected.”
YG continued, describing how his public persona can impact the way people treat him. “People put me in the box,” he explained. “They know us as gang members and we from the streets and all this, you feel me? So they look at us like, ‘Oh, we gang members, we animals, we not human.’ You know what I’m saying? But it’s like, bro, I’m human. I go through real-life stuff outside of the street stuff.”
