Mom-of-three Elizabeth Smart, 33, says she has started to open up to her children about her nine-month abduction and admits her ordeal has made her a 'helicopter parent'

Nearly two decades after Elizabeth Smart was abducted as a teenager from her Utah home and held captive for nine months, the 33-year-old kidnapping survivor says she has recently started to talk to her three children about her harrowing ordeal.

Smart also revealed that her traumatic experience has made her a hyper-vigilant and cautious parent who frequently checks up on her children. 

Smart spoke out about her parenting style in a new interview with E! News just days after she was revealed as being a participant on Fox's The Masked Dancer reality show competition, where she appeared as Miss Moth.

Kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart opened up about parenting after being revealed as Miss Moth on the Fox reality competition The Masked Dancer  

Smart, 33, was on the cast of the show, which is a spinoff of the long-running Masked Singer

Smart's identity was revealed on January 13, after she was defeated by other contestants 

The married mom-of-three said her five-year-old daughter, Chloe has started to ask questions about her kidnapping 

Smart's true identity was revealed on January 13 after she failed to beat the other contestants.

Since her kidnapping and rescue in 2002, Smart has reinvented herself as an author, advocate against sexual violence, podcast host, and now reality TV star. She and her husband, Matthew Gilmour, have three children together: five-year-old Chloe, three-year-old James and two-year-old Olivia. 

Smart told E! News that in recent months, her eldest daughter has started to ask questions about her past.

'Occasionally, I'm doing a presentation or I'm on a Zoom call, and she doesn't understand. So she asked me, "Why?" And as her questions come up, that is how I gauge how much to tell my daughter,' Smart explained. 

Smart was 14 years old when she was kidnapped at knifepoint in 2002 and held in captivity for nine months. It was not until years later that Smart's parents, Ed and Lois Smart , learned the extent of the sexual abuse she had endured 

Smart was rescued in March 2003 after two witnesses recognized her abductors

The married mom-of-three kidnapping survivor said she has been striving to answer Chloe's questions truthfully, but in an age-appropriate way. 

'With all my children, really, I certainly never want to hide what happened in the past, because every single one of us has a past,' she explained. 

Smart was just 14 years old when she was kidnapped at knifepoint from her Salt Lake City home in June 2002 by handyman Brian David Mitchell. 

She was rescued nine months later in March 2003 after two witnesses recognized her abductors.

In 2009, Smart testified in court how she was drugged, tied to a tree and raped daily - as often as four times a day. 

Smart's captor, Mitchell, was convicted in 2010 and is serving a life sentence.

In 2010, Mitchell's wife, Wanda Barzee, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and in a plea deal was given credit for the seven years she already served. She was released from prison in September 2018 and now lives in the same town as Smart, despite Smart's pleas to the parole board not to set her free. 

Smart's captor, Brian Mitchell , was convicted in 2010 and is serving a life sentence. His wife, Wanda Barzee , is out of prison 

Smart, pictured with her husband and children, said she is a 'helicopter parent' who is hyper-vigilant and conscious of her surroundings 

Smart told E! News that her kidnapping has informed her approach to parenting.

'I'm probably more into helicopter parents than I would have imagined,' she told the entertainment news outlet. 'And it also makes me think that I'll never regret checking on my children or spending that extra time to look after them or watch them. 

'I'll never regret it. I might regret not spending time with them or not looking after them for that moment. So, I think it's probably made me a more conscious parent.'

When asked what inspired her to take part in the Masked Dancer, Smart, who admitted that she 'can't dance to save my life,' explained that she did it to honor her fearless late grandmother. 

Smart agreed to take part in The Masked Dancer to honor her grandmother who passed away last year 

Smart appears in her Miss Moth costume on stage with Masked Dancer host Craig Robinson

'I'm pretty sure she wasn't scared of anything,' Elizabeth says. 'And I thought, I want to be able to look back on my life and feel the same way. For all of the heavy, serious things that I've done, I want to be able to look back and laugh.'

Smart summed up her experience on the dancing competition as 'the most terrifying thing I have ever voluntarily done.'