Jessica Ennis-Hill broke down in front of TV cameras for the first time in her life after discovering heartbreaking buried secrets about her family’s past.
Gold medal-winning Olympian Jessica Ennis-Hill has developed strong mental resilience through years of competitive athletics.
However, she was unprepared for the heartbreaking stories she uncovered while exploring her ancestry.
Despite vowing to herself that she wouldn’t break down, when she participated in the BBC’s genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? she wept in front of the cameras.
The former “poker face” who would never give “too much” away, became much more of an open book as she learnt more about her mixed background.
She’d expected to find athletics stars in her family tree but instead ended up being taken to the sugar plantation where, until now unbeknown to her, her great-great-great-great-grandfather had been enslaved. He’d been born into slavery in the late 1700s in Jamaica, making rum barrels as he grew up.
However, trauma turned to pride as Jessica learned that there was a happier ending. He’d managed to secure independence and make money away from the plantation until he was able to buy the land from the man enslaving him for £160 – a large sum in those days.
Jessica was moved to tears by the “eerie feeling” visiting the plantation gave her. “It looked so beautiful, the house and the immaculate gardens, but then there’s this awful feeling of history there,” she exclaimed.
Her dad Vinnie accompanied her, marking the first time he’d been back to Jamaica since leaving as a young teen.
“It was quite a traumatic experience for dad moving to England. His parents came first and he was left behind with his brother, then he followed,” she explained.
Soon after, there was another upheaval for him as his mum and dad moved to America and left him behind with his grandparents.
He then felt a “disconnect” from Jamaica, meaning he was too “anxious” ever to go back.
There was another heartbreaking moment in store as she learnt the troubled history on her mother’s side of the family too.
The athelete’s great-great-grandmother Maud had mysteriously disappeared way back in 1919, never to see the young children she seemingly abandoned ever again.
Yet it turns out she never left them at all, but was committed to a psychiatric hospital, where she lived until her death.
Tragically, when her 11-year-old daughter died, but no one told her great-great-grandmother, which was tough for Jessica to process.
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Source: New York Post
