Alesha Dixon has revealed she and her brother used to feel "helpless" as they watched her mother get physically attacked by a former partner during their younger years.
Dixon has revealed her mum used to suffer domestic abuse at the hands of a former partner, but the 35-year-old star and her brother were powerless to do anything about it because they were so young so they just had to sit on the stairs and watch the awful events unfold.
During an interview with Piers Morgan for 'Piers Morgan's Life Stories', which will air on ITV on Friday (05.09.14), she recalled: "I think me and my brother were on the stairs, we could hear fighting, we could hear an argument going on and it wasn't the first time so obviously we knew what was happening.
"I just remember my mum wanting to escape. I remember the door flying open, mum running and I remember my brother and I just standing there a bit helpless. That's the thing that stood out the most, we couldn't help her in that moment.
"I remember her running down the road trying to get away and the perpetrator was obviously following her and then he caught up with her and my brother and I had to stand on the side of the road and watch our mum. He attacked her.
"I think for my brother and I what was so difficult was we were so young, we couldn't help."
Despite witnessing the traumatic events, which left a normally confident young Alesha "afraid of everything", the singer insists she had a "great childhood".
However, she did suffer racist abuse at a young age as a result of growing up in a predominately white area of Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, but she shrugged it off as "ignorance" rather than kids being "vicious" to her.
She said: "It wasn't particularly nice and actually there were occasions where it did get to me. People used to call me names.
"Things like that where it was so immature and silly you can't even get upset by it and yes there were occasions where people could be racist. I had the ability to see, I never took it to heart in respect that they were ignorant.
"Understanding that children are not innately vicious they have to be taught it, it's just ignorance. It would be silly for me to get upset by that."
'Piers Morgan's Life Stories: Alesha Dixon' airs on ITV at 9pm on Friday (05.09.14).
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