Christian media icon Chonda Pierce tackles crippling depression, grief and abuse in memoir

When she was a child, her father often doled out brutal punishments to all his kids at the same time.

"Dad would line us up, fling off his belt, and start whipping," Christian comedian Chonda Pierce writes in her upcoming book.

"I am not sure what was more painful for me, the belt making contact and leaving red stripes and welts on my body or listening to it make contact on my brother’s and sisters’ backsides."

Pierce's new memoir, "Life Is Funny Until It's Not," out Tuesday (May 7), is packed with such stark, raw revelations about her lifetime of traumas — physical abuse, sexual assault, the untimely deaths of both sisters and her husband, abandonment and a depression so severe she was hospitalized for 10 days.

Pierce, a beloved veteran on the church comedy circuit, is no stranger to dealing with tough stuff in public. Her 2015 documentary, "Laughing in the Dark," deals with her husband drinking himself to death.

In the new memoir, though, Pierce, 64, seemingly deals with it all in the same space.

"Pedestals in Christianity trouble me. So, I decided that you need to know that the funny gal on stage, the one you have blessed with your support and laughter for more than thirty years, was not always perfect," Pierce writes in the introduction to her new book.

In an interview with The Tennessean, Pierce said she talked about her trauma to show how her faith got her through gut-wrenching chapters of her life. And she said she hopes to reduce stigma around mental illness, substance use disorder and childhood abuse and sexual assault survivors.

In the book, Pierce reveals she was sexually assaulted by a stranger in 2017 in her Ashland City home. She told The Tennessean she kept it quiet before because she'd had some drinks and was afraid of being judged by her more fundamentalist Christian fans.

'I was afraid of what my fans would think of me'

Pierce said she reported that attack to Ashland City authorities and had a rape kit done, but two days later, she decided against trying to prosecute her attacker.

"It wasn’t the usual shame that accompanies these horrific moments for women," Pierce wrote in book. "Nope. I was afraid … of you. I was afraid of what my fans would think of me."

Pierce said she had several glasses of wine the night she was raped.

"I was more afraid and embarrassed for my fans to find out I had a drink than the part that I got assaulted," Pierce said. "The judgmentalness of a portion of the church world is horrible."

The attack happened after a night out with friends at her favorite downtown steakhouse, Jeff Ruby's, and a stop afterward, Pierce said, at Miss Kelli's Karaoke Bar in Printer's Alley.

Pierce said she first saw and interacted with her attacker — a man she'd never met in his 40s, wearing jeans and a button down shirt — at the karaoke bar. He was sitting near the area where patrons select what songs they'll sing, Pierce said, and he made "silly and fun" comments to her when she was nearby.

Pierce, who took a ride share car home, said she believes the man followed the car home, and he showed up later in her living room and sexually assaulted her.

Pierce conceded she's worried about reaction to revealing the attack and saying it happened after she'd had some drinks.

"After you read this, well, I'm thinking I’m retiring because my career’s over. I’m really nervous about that," Pierce told The Tennessean.

"But I hope I’m wrong, I hope it opens a better dialogue of truth and honesty among Christians."

Pierce said she started processing the attack with a therapist a few weeks after it happened. She said she needed to work through feelings of guilt and shame.

"As many women do after such a trauma, I felt ashamed and dirty. I’ve since learned, of course, that being raped is not a woman’s fault," she said.

"Sure, we can all take precautions and keep our eyes open and radar up, but being forced into sex by someone bigger and stronger is not a choice. It’s a crime. And none of us should define ourselves by what happened to us."

'There must be a God'

Throughout the book, Pierce embraces her funny bone, even while describing her worst traumas and breakdowns.

Pierce described a 10-day stay at Vanderbilt University Psychiatric Hospital after saying she "crashed."

"Dr. Michael Murphy looked me in the eye said said, 'Chonda, you are clinically depressed.' The only thing that might have been more upsetting," she wrote, "is if he had said, 'Chonda, you are clinically fat.'"

The book, though, mostly offers deeply personal reflections on Pierce's toughest moments and some of her triumphs.

After years of little contact with her abusive dad, Pierce described learning he was terminally ill and calling to say goodbye.

"I told him to tell [sisters] Charlotta and Cheralyn hello for me. I said Mom was there and [her husband] David would be waiting on a bank somewhere with an extra fishing pole," Pierce wrote. “'Ya’ll go fishing and catch a few ‘til I get there.' And yes. I cried. But not long.

"From the moment I hung up the phone, I felt so good inside, as though the peace that passes understanding had flooded my soul. There is a tremendous freedom in forgiveness. My dad died the next day. I didn’t go to his funeral. I didn’t need to, and at long last, I no loner needed my dad to validate me.”

Pierce said she shared so many personal moments from her life because, in part, she said this will be the last book she writes.

"I want people to know me as more than being funny. I want them to do know I’m a survivor and how that happens. And the reason that happens is, I would not be alive without my faith," she said.

"I want people to shut that book and go, man, there must be a God because there is no other way for someone to survive that."

Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com or 615-259-8384.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Chonda Pierce: Christian comedian details sexual assault, struggles