Lee Alexander McQueen’s sister Janet has spoken out about the sexual abuse her younger brother faced as a 9-year-old child, at the hands of Janet’s now ex-husband.

In her somewhat upsetting interview with Times2, Alexander’s sister – who was 15 years the designer’s senior –reveals that she was so badly beaten by her then-husband that she suffered two miscarriages. While she knew her little brother had witnessed these attacks, she didn’t become aware of his own abuse, until four years before his death in 2010.

"I think in a way Lee looked up to me as the eldest, even though obviously I came across as weak because of what happened, but what Lee suffered it was just such a shock," said Janet. "It still is. How did I miss something like that?

“The day I was told I was shell-shocked. Can you imagine leading a life for so many years, and then finding out something as bad as that? You just can't grasp it at first. Of course I felt guilt. Who wouldn't?"

Alexander tragically committed suicide in February 2010, after battling depression, which Janet and her family weren’t fully aware of.

"If we had known the extent of it, we would have been bashing down doors, but we didn't," she said.

"We all spoke to Lee about the drugs, but he was a man in his late thirties. I don't want to name names, I've got to be careful, but people knew his state of mind and his family didn't… They knew about the other suicide attempts. We didn't."

The work of Alexander McQueen is currently being celebrated in the Savage Beauty exhibition at London’s V&A Museum, while McQueen the play has just opened at London’s St. James Theatre, starring Stephen Wight and Glee’s Dianna Agron.