SANDRA BULLOCK’s ex blames “childhood abuse” for his cheating ways.

In an interview with ABC News’ Nightline, love-rat Jesse James believes that his childhood abuse caused him to cheat on his ex-wife Sandra Bullock with a number of women.

He tells the network:

“I grew up with a huge amount of shame and fear and abandonment on my shoulders from a very young age and I think, you know, the way my mind rationalized [cheating], ‘Well, you know, I might as well do whatever I can to like run her off cause she is going to find out what I am anyway and leave me anyway.”

He also added that his father was physically and emotionally abusive towards him.

“He beat my ass pretty good a bunch of times…I just remember, like, clinched teeth, strained-neck look on his face.” Jesse said. “My whole childhood, I never had a chance to be a kid. …I was always scared.”

In contrast to Jesse’s revelations, his own mother (Janina James Coan) told TMZ that she was “appalled” by what he said about his father – Larry James.

She states:

 “Larry was the most caring father, the kindest father who would do anything for anybody. He loved Jesse to death and would brag about him all the time.”

However Coan does say that Jesse and his dad don’t get along, and it all started, she claims, when Jesse was 16. She claims Larry found out hat Jesse and a friend allegedly robbed a Fotomat and called the cops on him. Coan says Jesse ended up in juvenile hall and was very upset that his dad turned him in.