Sen. Scott Brown has revealed he was sexually abused as a child several times by a camp counselor and has detailed physical abuse by a stepfather.
The Republican senator from Massachusetts made the revelations in an interview to air Sunday night on the CBS program "60 Minutes."
Brown says the camp counselor threatened to kill him if he disclosed the sexual abuse.
"He said, 'If you tell anybody ... I'll kill you. I will make sure nobody believes you,'" Brown said in the interview.
Brown also said he looked into buying a home where his stepfather had physically abused him just so he could "burn it down."
Brown said that being physically abused at home and being the product of broken homes made him more vulnerable to sexual predators.
"When people find people like me at that young, vulnerable age, who are basically lost, the thing that they have over you is, they make you believe that no one will believe you," he said.
Brown added that even his mother did not know about the sexual abuse.
"That's what happens when you're a victim. You're embarrassed. You're hurt," he said.
Brown emerged on the national political scene with his improbable victory in the race for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's seat. He details the childhood trauma in a new book, "Against All Odds."
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