Ellen DeGeneres opened up about being sexually assaulted as a teenager on David Letterman’s Netflix talk show “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.”

DeGeneres, 61, first went public with the incident in an interview with Allure in 2005. Speaking to Letterman, DeGeneres says she suffered abuse from her mother Betty’s then-husband. The comedian described how the abuse began after her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“He told me when she was out of town that he’d felt a lump in her breast and needed to feel my breasts because he didn’t want to upset her, but he needed to feel mine,” DeGeneres says. “He convinced me that he needs to feel my breasts, and then he tries to do it again another time, and then another time.”

DeGeneres continued on that at one point she escaped out of a window to get away from the abuse.

“He tries to break my door down, and I kicked the window out and ran ’cause I knew it was going to go more to something,” DeGeneres says. “I didn’t want to tell my mother because I was protecting her and I knew that that would ruin her happiness — and she was happy with him even though he was a horrible man.”

DeGeneres explains that she kept the abuse a secret from her mother but eventually when she did open up her mother didn’t believe her.

“I should never have protected [my mother]. I should have protected myself and I didn’t tell her for a few years, and then I told her,” DeGeneres says. “And then she didn’t believe me, and then she stayed with him for 18 more years and finally left him because he’d changed the story so many times.”

She hopes that speaking up about her assault can give strength to other victims.

“When I see people speaking out, especially now, it angers me when victims aren’t believed because we just don’t make stuff up,” DeGeneres says.

DeGeneres’ episode streams on Netflix on Friday, May 31.