Dele Alli smiles, his features soften and there is a nervous little laugh. He does this a lot. It is one of his defence mechanisms, a way of pushing back at all the hurt. He knows that now.
Gary Neville is interviewing him for The Overlap and has just asked about his childhood. "I think there were a few incidents that can give you a kind of brief understanding," Dele says, and there is a pause, an internal struggle - of the type he has wrestled with throughout his life. And then Dele kicks open the window to his soul.
"So, at six, I was molested by my mum's friend, who was at the house a lot ... so my mum was an alcoholic, and then ..." The lump in Dele's throat has tightened, his voice cracks. He bows his head and fights back the tears. So does Neville. "Sorry," Dele says. Why do the victims always say that?
Dele goes on to talk about how he was sent to live with his absentee father in Africa for a year to "learn discipline", although he was returned after six months. "Horrible," he says. "I didn't want to be there at all."
Growing up was impossibly tough for Dele on his estate in Milton Keynes. His mother had no money and there were no boundaries, no rules. Dele had a house key and he came and went as he pleased. He was smoking at seven, running drugs on his push-bike at eight. At 11 he was, in his words, "hung off a bridge by a guy from the next estate, a man".
Esta historia es de la edición July 14, 2023 de The Guardian.
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