Yahoo News Emmerdale star befriends a real-life abuse survivor
Emmerdale's Danny Miller has revealed that he befriended a real-life abuse survivor following Aaron Livesy's dark storyline.
The shocking plot saw Aaron admit that he had been raped by his own father from the age of eight, and has led to the actor receiving his third National Television Award nomination.
Talking to The Sunday People, Miller recalled how a woman came up to him in tears at a football match and told him that she had kept her abuse by her dad quiet for decades.
"She couldn't really speak but you could see she was desperate to off-load," he noted. "Once she had calmed down, she just said how amazing she thought the story was and how it helped her to speak out about what happened to her."
He added that she only told her husband after seeing Aaron open up to Robert Sugden in emotional scenes last January.
"She said she felt so much better after speaking about it and that means so much more to me than any award," Miller explained.
"The three things I wanted to achieve were somebody telling me that a storyline is hard-hitting, seeing it affect someone who has been through it, and seeing it help them. All three things happened in what that one woman said."
He is now in constant contact with the middle-aged woman, but added that she has not yet told everyone about her ordeal, even though he knows about it.
"I am so proud of her. It is one thing telling someone you love, but another thing telling a complete stranger," Miller enthused.
"God bless that lady, she seemed so proud that she could be a different person now. When we set out on this storyline we said we would be happy if it helped one person, and it did. This one lady really made me think: job done."
Aaron is caught up in another dramatic storyline currently in Emmerdale, recently beating up Finn Barton's on-off boyfriend Kasim Sabet. He's been telling us all about what's to come for Robron.
Emmerdale airs on ITV.
Readers who are affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000 (www.nspcc.org.uk). Readers in the US are encouraged to contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline on (1-800-422-4453) or the American SPCC (www.americanspcc.org).
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