Though Hallmark Channel movies have often been parodied for tending to solve conflicts and hardships with relative ease (plus a little Christmas magic), one of the network’s most beloved stars knows firsthand that healing from trauma is complicated and ongoing, and she’s not afraid to talk about it.
Actress Nikki DeLoach has shared openly about her own tough stuff, from the three heart surgeries and continual monitoring her youngest son Bennett has endured since his birth to her grief over her dad’s death from a rare and aggressive form of dementia called Pick’s Disease. Now, DeLoach is speaking up about another hard topic, weeks after telling EntertainmentNow she is determined to use her voice for good now more than ever.
Case in point: on December 11, 2025, the “A Grand Ole Opry Christmas” star opened up on the“Books That Changed My Life” podcast about abuse she experienced growing up and how one book in particular has been instrumental in her healing journey.
Nikki DeLoach Says Books Helped Her Escape as a Child
DeLoach, who shares two young sons with her husband, Ryan Goodell, shared her story with “Books That Changed My Life” podcast host Chris Collins, explaining why Glennon Doyle’s 2020 book “Untamed” was so profound for her.
Reading when she was growing up, DeLoach told him, became an escape when she was trying to block out the abuse she endured as a young girl, noting that she read 300 books the year she was 11. The “Curious Caterer” star said she was always “imagining a way out of nowhere.”
“That’s what books gave me as a kid who went through abuse,” she said. “You know, I would lay on my trampoline and I would read, or in my bedroom. I was constantly reading and books allowed me to imagine a world outside of that, and I would just disappear into them.”
“There was physical abuse in my childhood,” she vulnerably told Collins, “but it was the sexual abuse that really, honestly, just made me want to disappear.”
Nikki DeLoach Says It Took ‘Years to Untangle’ the Psychological Impact of Abuse
When DeLoach read “Untamed,” she was stunned by how much she related to the childhood experiences Doyle wrote about, explaining to Collins, “She talks about being 10 years old … and that’s when we’re taught what it looks like to be a good girl, right? At 10 years old is when this happened to me. And I was silenced and wasn’t allowed to actually say what happened to me.”
“Untamed” is about Doyle’s journey from “living to please others to embracing her authentic self” after facing her own hard truths, including facing the negative voices that began to creep into her psyche as a kid.
DeLoach told Collins that resonated because “at 10 years old, I was told that being a good girl was letting boys do anything to you, to letting adults do anything to you, and you just keeping your mouth shut. There’s something really powerful, in a negative way, that happens when you’re a kid and the adults that you trust for basically everything can’t be trusted.”
DeLoach said she felt “that my life was not worthy of protection. That there was something so deeply broken and unlovable about me that I didn’t deserve that, and that’s when the disordered eating started. Just like Glennon at 10 years old, she became a bulimic. For me, it was anorexia and I just began to disappear, because if I was small — that’s what I was being told: ‘Be small, don’t speak, look pretty.’ Nobody wants your opinion on anything.'”
“And man, did it take me decades to untangle that and to learn to love myself,” DeLoach shared. “And this book was such a huge part of me being able to do that.”
Nikki DeLoach Says She’s Going to Keep Speaking Up for the ‘Most Vulnerable’ in Society
In late November, DeLoach told EntertainmentNow that she’s becoming more vocal than ever about her hard experiences and her opinions on the state of the world, healing by using her voice — even if it means she might lose fans or social media followers.
“I don’t care if you unfollow me; I have got to speak up because it’s the right thing to do,” she said. “And if you are too concerned about people unfollowing you to step up and say the truth and to fight for humanity and to do the right thing? That’s absolutely not right.”
“I don’t believe in dehumanizing anyone,” DeLoach continued. “Even when you disagree with them, you stick to the issues. You fight for what’s right, you speak truth, and you fight for our most vulnerable. Because the measure of a good nation is how we take care of our most vulnerable, and we are failing.”
DeLoach said she’s concerned that the divisiveness that plays out every day on social media and in the news keeps people “from paying attention to what’s happening right in front of you, the real stuff.” She added, “We have to come together and fight for humanity, especially when it comes to something as important as (helping) our most vulnerable people in society … and if that means you want to follow me, then fine.”
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Hallmark’s Nikki DeLoach Bravely Shares Childhood Abuse & How She’s Healing (EXCLUSIVE)