Article Warning: Description may be upsetting to some fans.

SECRET RAPE NIGHTMARE OF SINGER LENA’S MOTHER

THE mother of Seventies singing sensation Lena Zavaroni was the victim of a brutal rape, the Sunday Mirror can reveal.

And the shock of the assault - when Lena was at the height of her fame - may have prompted the former child star’s decline.

Lena’s mum Hilda was attacked when she went home to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute after staying with Lena in London.

The rape has been revealed by Hilda’s father, Peter Jordon, because he believes it caused the breakdown of her marriage to Lena’s father Victor, her lonely death in 1989 - and to Lena’s anorexia and severe depression.

“Lena was about 15 or 16 when her mother was attacked. She was appearing at the Palladium, going to Hollywood, all that,” said Mr Jordon, 76. “But after her mother was attacked, Lena seemed to go down hill. I don’t know whether it was just coincidence or what.

“People said she got the eating disorder because she couldn’t handle the fame. But the terrible thing that happened to her mother must have affected her.”

Recalling the tragedy, Mr Jordan said: “Hilda came to see me; she was in a terrible state. She said a man had entered the room she was staying in at the Black Bull pub.

“The details she told me are just too horrible to describe. But she was brutally raped, that’s a fact. And no one was ever convicted of the attack. In the end Hilda caved in; she just couldn’t take the pressure. She told the police not to proceed.”

Copyright Sunday Mirror (London, England) 21 March 1999 ← follow the link for the full article