Yahoo Finance Elizabeth Smart Says She’s Sharing Her Abduction Story with Her Children: 'Never Want to Hide What Happened'
Elizabeth Smart/Instagram Elizabeth Smart and her three children
Elizabeth Smart has slowly started to open up to her children about her terrifying abduction as a teen.
In an interview with E! News, the 33-year-old author, activist and mother of three said she doesn't plan to hide anything about her past ordeal from her kids.
Smart, who just recently appeared as the Moth on Fox's reality competition series The Masked Dancer, said her five-year-old daughter Chloe has "begun to sort of ask questions."
"Occasionally, I'm doing a presentation or I'm on a Zoom call, and she doesn't understand. So she asked me, 'Why?' And as her questions come up, that is how I gauge how much to tell my daughter."
"With all my children, really, I certainly never want to hide what happened in the past, because every single one of us has a past," she continued. "Every single one of us has had something happen in our lives. It's unrealistic to think that we will all just have a perfect life. We will all face hardships and struggles, in whatever form that may be, and so I have begun to speak to her as she asked questions. But with that being said, it's not all at once. And it's age-appropriate, to the best of my ability."
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Frederick M. Brown/Getty Elizabeth Smart
Smart was 14-years-old when she was abducted from her bed at her Salt Lake City home on June 4, 2002 by street pastor Brian David Mitchell. Smart's sister Mary Katherine Smart, who shared the same bedroom, witnessed the abduction and pretended to be asleep but woke her parents up later when she felt it was safe to do so.
Smart was held in captivity for nine months and raped repeatedly.
Mitchell and Smart were eventually found in Sandy, Utah. Mitchell was convicted on kidnapping charges and sentenced to life in prison in 2010. His wife, Wanda Barzee, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for her role in the kidnapping. Barzee was released in 2018.
