Home Outreach Leaders Articles for Outreach & Missions Raped at Age 11, Daria Bullard Chose Life. Her Son is Now...

Raped at Age 11, Daria Bullard Chose Life. Her Son is Now a WWE Superstar

Daria Bullard

Wrestling fans are undoubtedly familiar with Titus O’Neil. The former football player and WWE superstar has been a fixture on the wrestling circuit for 10 years, and has won several championships. Less familiar for many, though, is the story of his upbringing. O’Neil, whose real name is Thaddeus Bullard, was born to Daria Bullard when she was just 11 years old.

In an interview with WWE, Daria Bullard told her story, which is both heartbreaking and inspiring. “At the age of 10, I went to live with my mom,” she began. “I had lived with my grandparents up until that time. And at that time is when her boyfriend molested me.” It was from that awful act of rape that O’Neil was conceived. And yet, her mother did not offer her daughter the support she needed because she chose life. Daria Bullard was repeatedly pressured by her mother to have an abortion, but she refused each time, at the young age of 10.

“Because I would not have an abortion, she brought me to south Florida. And I still wouldn’t have one,” Daria Bullard said. “So then she put me out, and luckily, I met friends to go live with.”

Despite Daria Bullard’s heroic bravery, the journey was not an easy one to walk. “I was scared, of course,” she said. “I didn’t tell my grandparents. I was feeling more ashamed and embarrassed, like it was my fault that it happened… until years later, when I realized, people telling me it wasn’t my fault. I was just a child. And because I didn’t speak out, nothing was done about it.”

“I know it was a struggle for her,” O’Neil said. “I didn’t find out why that struggle was the way that it was until I was 17 years old… being a product of sexual assault. And that’s how I was brought into this world.”

Previously, O’Neil said he had a difficult relationship with his mother. But finding out the truth, of her love for him and willingness to fight and give up so much to protect his right to life, changed everything. “It was at that moment that I realized that my mother was a kid, trying to raise kids,” he said.