LISTEN: Dax Shepard reveals he was molested as a child

Los Angeles - Dax Shepard has revealed that he was molested as a child.

The 41-year-old actor said it took him 12 years to tell anyone about the abuse by an 18-year-old neighbour when he was just seven years old and he thinks it contributed to his addiction issues as an adult.

Speaking on Sirius XM's The Jason Ellis Show, Dax said: "It was minimal but it took me 12 years to tell anyone. And then all that time, I was like, 'It's my fault,' as generic as that is ... 'and I'm gay, I must have manifested this because I'm secretly gay.' I had all these insane thoughts for 11 years or 12 years."

Dax - who has two children with his wife Kristen Bell - has been open about his past addiction issues and trying everything including "drinking, cocaine, opiates, marijuana, diet pills and pain pills", and revealed his recent discovery that addiction can be linked to past child abuse.

Sharing a statistic his mother, who works with children as a court-appointed advocate for Foster children, told him about, he said: "If you've been molested, you only have a 20 per cent chance of not being an addict.

"And I was like, 'Hm, interesting,' because in my mind I just like to have a fucking great time. But when you hear a statistic like that, I'm like, 'Oh no, I was going to be an addict, period.'"

Listen to the interview here: