Andy Carroll says he was sexually assaulted in 2021

Former Liverpool and England striker Andy Carroll has revealed that he was sexually assaulted by a man in 2021.

Carroll wrote in his autobiography, “Owning it,” that the incident happened at his home after he invited a man to stay over following a televised boxing fight. The man, described as a friend of Carroll's former partner, was later jailed for three years.

Carroll, now a player and co-owner of non-league club Dagenham and Redbridge, was automatically granted anonymity as a victim of sexual assault. He said the assault happened while he was sleeping. He threw the man out of the house and knocked him unconscious when the man tried to get back inside.

“I was sexually assaulted, there I said it,” Carroll wrote. He said he decided to include the incident in the book at the last minute after discussing it with his girlfriend, Lou Teasdale.

Carroll said testifying in court, where the attacker was found guilty of sexual offences and placed on the sex offender register, was “humiliating and embarrassing and absolutely horrendous.”

“What happened to me affected every facet of my life,” he wrote. “The trauma of what happened to me hasn't gone away.”