Tyler Perry Opens Up About Childhood Abuse on 'Oprah' (VIDEO)

Warning: This clip contains graphic descriptions of physical and sexual abuse.

Celebrities often open up on 'Oprah Winfrey' (Weekdays, syndicated) in ways more intimate than they would anywhere else. Winfrey's good friend Tyler Perry was on Wednesday, and spoke candidly about the horrors of his childhood, from physical abuse he suffered at the hands of his father to sexual abuse at the hands of multiple neighbors.

It's a tragic story of despair that began when he was five or six years old and was still happening into his tenth year. While Perry's deep devotion to religion is well known now, even his faith betrayed him in his youth. He said the man he opened up to in the church "used God and the Bible against me, you know, to justify a lot of the things that were going on."

As many sufferers of abuse do, Perry tried to use his mind to escape the torments of his body, and related one time when he was being beaten by his father that something different happened. There was a park in his mind's eye that was his safe place to retreat to internally when he'd lost control of what was happening in the real world, but during this incident it took a long time to get there. When he finally "saw the grass coming" of the park, he also saw a version of himself running away.