By Breaking Celebrity News Staff

Boxer Sugar Ray Leonard has said that he is glad that he finally opened up about the sexual abuse that he suffered as a teenager at the hands of his coach because the horrific secret was "killing" him.

In an interview with CNN news on Thursday, the 55-year-old boxing champ explained how much the confession has helped him come to terms with the abuse, and Breaking Celebrity News has video of the heart wrenching interview.

"I had to get that out because it was killing me inside, I was dying inside. I told no one. I kept this to myself for 30 something years," Leonard told the news network.

"I said it to my first wife Juanita but I said it under the influences of alcohol, because a guy doesn't talk about those things, especially me as a fighter. I could have kicked their (his abuser's) butt but I didn’t."

In his shocking memoir, The Big Fight: My Life In and Out of the Ring, that hit book shelves on Monday, Leonard revealed for the first time how he was sexually abused by a "prominent Olympic boxing coach" when he was 15-years-old.