Andy Carroll has revealed that he was sexually assaulted at his home in 2021, an experience he says has continued to affect his life and football long after the offender’s prison sentence ended.
Key takeaways
- Carroll says the assault took place during his second spell at Newcastle United.
- The former England striker reported the incident to police and the attacker was jailed for three years.
- The man has since been released from prison.
- Carroll included the account late in his autobiography, titled Taking It On, after discussing it with his partner Lou.
- He now plays for and co-owns National League South club Dagenham & Redbridge.
A difficult decision to speak
The 37-year-old had kept the matter within a very small circle until deciding to write about it. Carroll said even revisiting the event was frightening, and that only a few people had known what happened before the book.
He and his current partner, Lou, spent considerable time weighing up whether the experience should be published. Carroll said he put off his editor for so long that there may have been a suspicion he had decided against including it.
The incident occurred while his then partner was away. A friend of Carroll’s former partner had stayed at the house to watch a boxing fight. Carroll says he was asleep when the assault happened.
He said he threw the man out of the property afterwards and knocked him unconscious. A criminal complaint followed, leading to a three-year custodial sentence for the offender.
Football did not shut it out
Carroll, once Liverpool’s record signing when he joined from Newcastle in January 2011 alongside Luis Suárez as the club sought to replace Fernando Torres, said the trauma reached into every part of his day-to-day life.
“What happened to me affected every aspect of my life,” he said. “I thought about it every day, which made it hard to focus on anything else, including football.”
He added that the trauma has not vanished, but believes speaking openly may have a purpose beyond his own recovery. Carroll said the experience had helped make him the person he is, alongside the good moments in his life, and that it would have been worthwhile if his account helped even one other person.
