Minka Kelly Opens up About Working in a Peep Show on ‘The View’: “That Is the Story I Carried the Most Shame About”

Minka Kelly candidly opened up to The View about her time working in a peep show years before landing her gig on Friday Night Lights. The actress admitted that she was “most afraid” to share that time of her life in her new memoir, Tell Me Everything.

In the book, Kelly — who is the daughter of former Aerosmith guitarist Rick Dufay — discusses her turbulent upbringing, with an emphasis on her mother’s addiction.

While Kelly spent much of her youth accompanying her mother to her gigs at Los Angeles strip clubs, she opened up about her own experience working at a peep show at age 17.

“I start the book with the story of working in a peep show because that is the story that I carried the most shame about,” Kelly told the View panel. “That was the thing that I was the most afraid to ever share with anyone.”

The actor and model revealed that she once shared the story with someone she trusted, only for them to make her feel “really bad” about it. Fortunately, she had a good therapist, whom she credited for helping her understand how “brave” she was to work at a peep show when she didn’t have any other choice.

“A lot of times women don’t have a choice but to do what they have to do to survive and put a roof over your head and food in your mouth,” Kelly explained, before saying that her book is ultimately a “love letter” to her mother, who did “what she had to do to survive and feed her baby.”

Kelly — who later worked as a surgical nurse before becoming an actress — added, “I spent a lot of time really angry at her because I didn’t understand that at the time and I know that there are a lot of other mothers like her that need to know that they are seen.”

The View airs on weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.