Hip-hop superstar Missy Elliott was raped by her 16-year-old cousin when she was just eight - but refused to press charges against him when the abuse was exposed.

The PASS THE DUTCHIE rapper, 32, says she was so young she didn't understand what was happening during the abusive incidents, but realised something was very wrong.

And Missy - who is the patron of children's domestic abuse charity BREAK THE CYCLE - never took the unidentified relative to court as her father feared she would not be able to cope with the stress of the legal procedures.

She explains, "I'd go to his house. I was young and it was all about, 'Let's play the mummy and daddy game.'

"He'd bribe me with candy and money. Then he started doing a lot of things that were crazy. It was sex. I was passive, but I kept telling him, 'I don't want to do this.'

"But I didn't really get it. I didn't feel like I was unclean. I just knew it was wrong but I didn't know to what degree."

Missy's cousin - whose crimes were discovered by her aunt - later died aged 25 of a drug overdose.

13/02/2004 19:15