Christina Ricci Opens Up About Her 'Failed Cult Leader' Father
Christina Ricci is opening up about her past.
The 44-year-old Addams Family alum spoke about her upbringing with Demi Lovato for the Hulu documentary Child Star, out now.
“I had a very chaotic home,” she said. “My father was a failed cult leader, and so he had all that same sort of, like, really crazy narcissism that goes along with someone wanting to run a cult. And he was very physically violent. There was never any peace in my house.”
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“I knew nothing totally insane was about to happen,” she said of finding an escape on film and TV sets.
“Nobody was gonna get really mad and pretend they were gonna drive the car into a wall. There was this refuge of emotional safety.”
Christina grew up in New Jersey as the youngest of three siblings. Her parents divorced when she was 13, just after filming Addams Family Values. She and her father became estranged years later, according to The Guardian in 2000.
“I know it sounds cold, but it was one of the first things I ever did in my life—to take care of myself,” she said at the time. “Decide that only people who deserve it can be in my life.”