‘I was sexually assaulted’ — Andy Carroll reveals traumatic incident

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Former Liverpool and England striker Andy Carroll has revealed he was sexually assaulted by a man in 2021.

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Carroll wrote in his autobiography ‘Owning it’ that the incident took place at his home with a man he had invited to stay over after watching a boxing fight on television.

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The perpetrator, a friend of Carroll’s former partner, was eventually jailed for three years.

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The 37-year-old, who is now a player and co-owner of non-league club Dagenham and Redbridge, was automatically granted anonymity as a victim of sexual assault.

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Carroll said the incident happened when he was sleeping.

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He threw the man out of the house and knocked him unconscious when he attempted to get back inside.

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“I was sexually assaulted, there I said it. Scary to even think about and only a few people knew about it before now,” Carroll wrote.

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Carroll decided to include the incident in his book “at the very last minute” after discussing it with his girlfriend Lou Teasdale.

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“Me and Lou spent a lot of time discussing whether to mention it in this book or not. I avoided my publisher for so long that they probably suspected I got cold feet,” he wrote.

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“Scary to talk about but it’s made (me) the person I am today as much as any of the good stuff. And if me talking about it helps just one person then good, it will have been worth it.”

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Carroll said testifying in court, where the attacker was found guilty of sexual offences and placed on the sex offender register, was “humiliating and embarrassing and absolutely horrendous”.

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The former Newcastle and West Ham forward, who won nine caps for England, added: “What happened to me affected every facet of my life.

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“I’d think about it every day, making it difficult to focus on anything else, including football. The trauma of what happened to me hasn’t gone away.”

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