What abuse did the DeBarge family have?
El DeBarge was born to Robert Louis DeBarge Sr. (1932–2009) and Etterlene (née Abney) DeBarge. He is a native of Detroit, Michigan, and the sixth of the children born to his parents. El DeBarge had loved music right from infancy and had sung in the church choir and even learned how to play the piano. When El was 13, his parents divorced after a difficult and stormy marriage.
According to several sources, their father Robert Louis DeBarge Sr. was very abusive to his wife and kids. He would physically abuse his abused his wife and children and sexually abused his daughter Bunny and several of his other children. His wife and the mother of his kids couldn’t take it anymore and finally left him in 1971.
Bunny was the eldest of them all, and she had recalled years of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her father. She said her father had started molesting her when she was seven and this carried on until she was 13.
According to various reports gathered, five of the older DeBarge children out of 10 turned to drugs after being sexually and physically abused by their now-deceased father.
Bobby Debarge, now deceased, was a victim of the abuse and turned around and abused James Deabarge.
