‘Dirty Dancing’ star, Patrick Swayze was physically abused as a child by his mother. His widow, reveals abuse claims in new documentary movie featuring his life.
“She could be very violent,” Lisa reveals in the documentary, airing on the Paramount Network on August 18, on his birthday.
Lisa, who was married to Patrick from 1975 until his death in 2009, says that Patsy’s perfectionism and high-expectations often turned into physical abuse.
Swayze was born in Houston, Texas on the 18th of August in 1952. Patsy Swayze, his mother ran a dance studio and he was practically raised in it. “Didn’t believe in babysitters,” she said in a Biography special. “Took all my babies with me to work. They grew up in a playpen in the dance studio.”
Many commented on his mother’s abusive nature: “One thing you didn’t do was cross Patsy,” Swayze’s childhood friend Larry Ward told Biography. “When Patsy said be in by midnight, by golly, don’t make it 12:01 or she’d have this finger right here cocked and loaded.”
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“Patrick privately recounted the story of his 18th birthday when Patsy was ‘laying into him’ before his father [Jesse] told his wife [Patsy] that he would divorce her if she touched their son again. She never hit him after that,” Lisa told People.
Patrick’s brother Don says in the film: “He always thought Mom was so strict and so hard on him. But the way I saw it she just used that to spur him on. He was everything to my mother.”
“She was a complicated woman, intense and an amazing life force,” she said to People. ”Patrick absolutely loved and respected her.”
Patrick Swayze remained close to his mother until his death at 57 from pancreatic cancer in September 2009. Patsy died from stroke complication in September 2013 at 86.
