He’s made a name for himself as one of the greatest living rock legends in Australia, but Jimmy Barnes has revealed he’s been carrying sad memories from his childhood for a long time.
Jimmy has released a memoir titled Working Class Boy and in it he’s opened up about the abuse he was forced to see his mother suffer at the hands of his father.
He says his father was an alcoholic and was emotionally and physically violent towards his mother and himself.
He and his siblings had to lock themselves in a cupboard to stay safe.
“Some nights we were in the cupboard for hours waiting for the battle to subside, other nights we couldn’t leave the cupboard at all,” he said, in an extract of the book published in the Courier Mail.
He said his sister Dot would sing to try to drown out the sounds of his parents fighting, but they could hear glass smashing in between the screaming before they climbed out again.
“Broken glass and smashed furniture was all that was left of our lives. That and the sound of Mum crying in the bedroom again,” he said.
The book is incredibly moving and Jimmy hasn’t held back, talking about his own problems with drinking and drugs with honesty.
It shot the number one on the bestsellers list in its first week and has already sold over 160,000 copies.