Connect with us

Minka Kelly grew up in strip clubs, got pregnant at 17

Photos: GETTY

All round

Minka Kelly grew up in strip clubs, got pregnant at 17

Minka Kelly, the actress who starred in “Friday Night Lights” and “Charlie’s Angels,” has written a memoir about her life as the daughter of an exotic dancer, her journey to becoming an actress, and her romantic relationships.

In the memoir, called “Tell Me Everything,” Kelly shares stories of her mother, Mo, taking her to strip clubs as a child, physical abuse, and getting pregnant at 17.

She said that her childhood was “colorful and chaotic, unstable and inconsistent, unpredictable and hard a lot of the times,” but also noted that it made her a “very adaptable person.”

Kelly grew up in poverty and was often unsupervised as her mother worked as an exotic dancer to make ends meet.

Mo would sometimes take the young child with her to the Crazy Girls strip club in Los Angeles, and they’d go grocery shopping at 2 a.m. afterward if Mo made enough money.

At the age of 17, Kelly performed in peep shows at an adult video store in New Mexico to make ends meet while her mother wasn’t around.

She said that she started with the scariest part of her memoir, the part that she carried the most shame about, the part that she felt most embarrassed about, the part that she hid her whole life, and the part that people made her feel bad about.

Kelly also found out she was pregnant at the age of 17 with her high-school boyfriend, Rudy.

The actress moved in with Rudy at the time but later chose to have an abortion.

Kelly recalled making the decision after her mom suggested they raise the baby together.

“Raise this baby together, how?” Kelly wrote, according to excerpts obtained by Page Six.

“With what money? What home? What insurance? I couldn’t imagine bringing a baby into what my mother brought me into. Absolutely not.”

Kelly detailed her toxic relationship with Rudy, explaining that he had coerced her into making a sex tape, which he later sold back to her for $50,000 after trying to sell it to the tabloids.

She said that she hardly even remembered making the tape and had become such a master at leaving her body when things were uncomfortable.

Kelly moved to New Mexico with her mother to live with Mo’s boyfriend, David.

According to Kelly, he beat her after Mo told him the actress had been “borrowing” the car.

Kelly claimed that David hit her with an open hand, then a fist, over and over again.

He found a piece of cable wire on the floor and started thrashing her with it as she curled into a ball to protect what parts of herself she could.

Welts were rising all over her skin when he finally exhausted his fury.

Kelly returned to Los Angeles after finishing high school and studied to become a surgical technician while acting.

She was also able to reconnect with her father, a former guitarist for Aerosmith.

In the memoir, Kelly also wrote about her toxic relationship with “Friday Night Lights” co-star Taylor Kitsch.

She landed the role of Lyla Garrity on the drama, which ran from 2006 to 2009.

She revealed that all the effort she might have invested in connecting consistently with the girls on the show went to Taylor.

So when her relationship with Taylor became toxic, she had no one to turn to.

“Life became very difficult both on and off set whenever we broke up.

We were young and had very few tools to handle our emotions and personal grievances.

On the days we had to work together and were broken up, he didn’t want to be in the hair and makeup trailer at the same time I was,” she said.

Kelly went on to have a number of high-profile relationships after her “Friday Night Lights” success, including John Mayer, Derek Jeter, Chris Evans, and most recently Trevor Noah.

Her memoir, “Tell Me Everything,” is set to be published on May 2.

Continue Reading
Advertisement
You may also like...

More in All round

Top stories today

Popular this week

Popular Topics

Trending this month

To Top
yes