Guest Post by Desirae Brown

In the fall of 2007 we were at the peak of our careers. All five of us, including our brothers Gregory and Ryan, had attended Juilliard, capturing the attention of The New York Times and thereby launching The 5 Browns. We now had three #1 classical records and were featured on “60 Minutes,” “Leno,” and many more. But “a lot was lurking there,” as my youngest sister, Melody, so aptly put it.

“The three of us sisters shared a bedroom growing up and thought we knew everything about each other, pretty much,” recalled my other sister, Deondra.

I had just been piecing things together. There had been a lot of fighting on this tour between my father, who was also our manager, and Deondra. I knew, of course, about my own abuse at the hands of our father and sensed there was something more. So it was outside of D.C. that Deondra and I were sharing a hotel room, up late talking. The lights were out and I just asked her, straight-up, into the darkness, if Dad had abused her. And the answer she gave was the worst moment of my life.

“What stands out in my mind is the fact that she didn’t just ask me once,” remembered Deondra. “She asked me over and over again until I was brave enough to say the words. After a night of crying and praying, we approached our younger sister, Melody, and found that she, too, had also been abused by our father.”

Since that time, we have made some very difficult and painful choices, including prosecuting our father for the abuse of me and my sisters — and losing the relationship with our mother in the process. Now, another decision: should we open up our lives to a documentary filmmaker and expose the emotional scars we were working so hard to heal?

“We had been approached by several producers over the years but it never felt right,” Deondra noted. “They always wanted to tell a more salacious story, losing sight of our music. Then we met [director] Ben Niles, and we began a very slow and open conversation about what a documentary might look and feel like. We had concerns, to be sure. How do you put trust in someone that you don’t really know? This is our privacy,” she added. “We play the piano, we don’t owe the public this.”

My primary concern was how Ben was going to treat our parents. I certainly didn’t want our father to have a voice, even from prison.

Melody was especially reticent. “I was very apprehensive,” she confided, “but it seemed like every time we went somewhere to play, [the abuse] was the elephant in the room. It was overshadowing everything so I thought, ‘Maybe if we do this project and just get it out there we can stop talking about it and just refer people to the film?’ I also didn’t want it to be branded [as being just about] survivors or victims. I think you can see that as a fairly big conflict in the film.”

We ultimately decided that if we were going to do it, it had to be completely honest. We didn’t feel it would help survivors of abuse if we sugar-coated our lives. Deondra and I felt that with the advocacy work we were already doing through our foundation would help reform statute of limitation laws, so making this film would help other survivors.

All of the elements that went into making the documentary were difficult — and each in its own way.  “First,” Deondra said, “it was a scary and difficult moment knowing he was interviewing our mother, who we had not spoken to in over six years.”

In addition, some of the old home movies Ben chose to use were painful to see in the context of our story now, especially for Melody. Her first time watching the whole doc was difficult.

“For me, it was hard watching my short life, full of childhood videos, play in front of me with so much honesty. I hadn’t told my closest friends some of the things I told Ben, and here the deepest parts of my life were being shared with people I didn’t know in screening audiences,” Melody confessed.

Throughout the whole process, I think, gradually, we all felt a real sense of trust in Ben. Seeing his approach and sensitivity to the material was uplifting. Still, the interviews were tough for all of us. As respectful as Ben was, I would get into a funk for a couple of days after each one. It would definitely set me back emotionally.

Deondra was surprised by everyone’s candor in the film. “It was really moving to see the one-on-one interviews that had taken place. I was really proud of everyone’s honesty and courage and I learned things about my siblings that I hadn’t heard before.”

“[Ben] was like the grim reaper,” joked Melody. “We laugh about it now. I had to relive [the past] every time we sat down for these interviews. I was closed-off when this whole thing started but I have to admit the process in itself was pretty cathartic.”

Our hope is that we can use the film as a tool to inspire other survivors to come forward, speak out, and educate the public about the need to reform statute of limitation laws.

“The 5 Browns: Digging Through the Darkness” will screen at the IFC Center in New York City January 23-29, 2019.