Alex Winter best known as Bill to Keanu Reeves’ Ted in the cult classic “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” has come forward as a victim of sexual abuse.
In an interview with BBC Radio 5, the former teen star said he was sexually abused when he was a child actor in the 1970s, and making the “Bill & Ted” films and short-lived series was “therapeutic.”
“It was an opportunity to be child-like… innocent and sweet,” the actor said in an interview Friday. “I absolutely feel like a survivor.”
Although Winter (above left) called the “Bill & Ted” franchise “silly” and said he doesn’t “hold them in overly high estimation as works of art,” they did prove to help him heal the trauma of abuse.
“For me personally, in terms of the experience… it was really, really helpful for me mentally,” he said. “The world of ‘Bill & Ted’ is a very sweet and fun place to run around in.”
He doesn’t go into detail about his traumatic experience four decades ago, but considers himself “incredibly lucky” for having a “functioning, healthy life,” and carries “an identification with those that didn’t make it, with the people that killed themselves, with people who are just walking around like a powder keg.”
Calling the experience “hellish,” Winter said he was left with PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] and he had to do “heavy lifting” to get through it.
“The biggest light bulb I’ve ever had, since I was abused, was when this stuff started coming out, over the course of the last year,” he told BBC. “I never thought in my lifetime that I would ever be… sitting here talking to a BBC radio person about my childhood sexual abuse.”
Listen to Winter’s entire interview here.