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YUNGBLUD (real named Dominic Harrison) has addressed his troubled childhood in interviews in the past, but during a visit to BBC's Louis Theroux Interviews… video series, the UK rocker opened up more than ever before about witnessing "physically and mentally and emotionally abusive" behavior from his parents and how he yearned to "escape" during his youth.
“My parents had this weird, beautifully dark relationship where I don’t know if I’ve ever seen two people love each other as much as they have, but I don’t think I’ve seen anybody hurt each other as much," he explained to Theroux (via NME). “It was physically and mentally and emotionally abusive. I’ve always wanted to build a world where I could exist to escape what was going on around me.”
His parents Justin and Samantha also spoke on the show about their rocky past. Harrison's father admitted that they “did shout at each other, you know, excessively” during that time and revealed he's been going to therapy on a weekly basis for anger issues. “The last few years I’ve been a lot calmer but obviously I needed therapy to control anger bursts and that’s what I did.”
“When we first met we were 16. You fancy the pants off each other. You don’t necessarily respect each other. I’m not trying to justify it but our neutral position is probably one of disrespect and youth and passion and we need to shout loudest and we need to get our own way," Samantha added. “We went to counselling for quite a few years and I think we learned to respect each other.”
Though Dominic feels like his family, which also includes two younger sisters, “haven’t resolved a lot of stuff together yet,” he still loves them.
“I think our family is very close to say what we’ve been through,” Justin concluded.