Celebrities Who Have Bravely Opened Up About Being Sexually Assaulted
It’s not always easy to speak up about sexual assault. Not only does talking about being assaulted bring the whole experience back to the present for victims, but there’s also the fact that shame can be attached to the incident — even though being assaulted is not the victim’s fault under any circumstances.
But when a celebrity talks openly about being assaulted, it can help heal the wounds of others who have gone through similar incidents. Assault can happen to anyone, and it doesn’t matter if you’re famous or not. It’s gut-wrenching and life-changing no matter who you are. Celebs who step up, however, put faces and names to sexual assault, which opens up the conversation.
Being famous isn’t all rainbows and butterflies. Constance Wu, Cassie, Lady Gaga, Gabrielle Union, James Van Der Beek, Margaret Cho, and more celebs are using their past traumas to help others.
If you or someone you know has been the victim of sexual assault, harassment or violence, you can get help. To speak with someone who is trained to help with these situations, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673) or chat online at online.rainn.org.
A version of this article was originally published in October 2017.
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Katie Thurston
Bachelor alum Katie Thurston shared in an Instagram story, “It took 7 months for the San Diego Justice to let me down as a victim of rape. I had two women with me. One was a nurse and the other my advocate. They were kind, nurturing, patient… I felt like a small lost child who was vulnerable and scared. They thoroughly explained the process, asking for my consent along the way, and allowing me to decline or change my mind at any time.”
She added, “The justice system continues to fail thousands every single day. But do not give up.”
Drake Bell
Drake & Josh alum Drake Bell opened up about being sexually assaulted in Discovery’s four-part docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV. In a clip obtained by People, Bell alleges he was molested when he was just a teenager by dialogue coach Brian Peck.
While Peck was initially his coach, he soon became Bell’s manager, even lending his sofa for the actor to sleep in after working on set. One day, however, it all changed.
“I was sleeping on the couch where I usually sleep and I woke up to him… I opened my eyes and I woke up and he was…he was sexually assaulting me,” Bell, who was 15 at the time, remembered. “And I froze, and was in complete shock and had no idea what to do or how to react.”
“And it just got worse, and worse, and worse, and worse, and I was just trapped,” Bell continued. “I had no way out. The abuse was extensive and it got pretty brutal.”
“I often look back at that time and wonder how in the world I survived,” he added. “I remember all of the abusive events, but everything outside of that is very blurry to me, which is a bummer because I experienced a lot of great things in my life and my career during this time. But it was so overshadowed and ruined by what I was dealing with on the inside that it made it really hard for me.”
Per People, Bell went on to sue Peck and he spent 16 months in prison in 2004 as well as being mandated to register as a sex offender.
Cassie
In late 2023, singer Cassie sued her ex Diddy in federal court accusing the rapper of rape and decade-long abuse that began when she was 19 years old, per Vulture. Among the claims in the lawsuit are sex trafficking, human trafficking, sexual battery, sexual assault, and gender-motivated violence.
“Cassie — Ms. Casandra Ventura — was held down by Mr. Combs and endured over a decade of his violent behavior and disturbed demands,” the lawsuit reads. “For Ms. Ventura, the ‘dark times’ were those she spent trapped by Mr. Combs in a cycle of abuse, violence, and sex trafficking.”
Just one day after Cassie’s filing, she and Diddy settled the case out of court. The details of the settlement were not released to the public.
Constance Wu
In her book of essays titled Making a Scene, Crazy Rich Asians star Constance Wu opened up about being sexually assaulted by an “aspiring novelist” named Ty on their second date.
According to Wu, it all happened when they started getting intimate and she asked him to stop but was completely ignored, per People.
“Some people might say that I should have fought back against Ty,” she wrote. “But if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t change how I reacted that night. Because when I think about the girl I was back then, I understand what she was going through.”
It was also years later when Wu realized what had happened to her. “I’d just woken up from a nap when the realization hit me like a flood,” Wu wrote. “Ty raped me. He raped me, and I hadn’t done anything about it.”
Bel Powley
Morning Show star Bel Powley opened up to The Independent about how she was inappropriately touched by a senior crew member of production when she was on set in her early 20s.
“I’ve had someone grab my arse and basically touch me inappropriately before,” Powley told the outlet. “I was too scared to say anything. I was too scared to rock the boat.”
“I just avoided that person and it was fine, but what really has changed post-MeToo is you just know that you’re protected,” she continued. “At the beginning of MeToo it was weird. For a while it was like, I feel protected because men are just f—ing scared, which was fine too, but now everything’s settled into itself. People have learned and it’s like there’s a new code of conduct.”
Matthew Lawrence
Matthew Lawrence recently opened up about a traumatic experience involving a “prominent Oscar award-winning director.”
“There have been many times in my life where I’ve been propositioned to get a huge role,” the actor said in the Brotherly Love podcast, per New York Post. “I’ve lost my agency because I went to the hotel room, which I can’t believe they would send me to, of a very prominent Oscar award-winning director who showed up in his robe, asked me to take my clothes off and said he needed to take Polaroids of me.”
“And then if I did X, Y and Z, I would be the next Marvel character. I didn’t do that, and my agency fired me because I left this director’s room,” Lawrence remembered.
Brooke Shields
Brooke Shields opened up about her horrific experience in her documentary Pretty Baby.
At the time her sexual assault happened, she was struggling to find acting roles after graduating from Princeton in 1987 and was excited to take a dinner with a Hollywood executive about a potential job. “I thought it was a work meeting,” Shields said, per USA Today. “I had met this person before and he was always nice to me.” His behavior began to change during the meal and he wasn’t discussing the film.
He insisted on calling her a cab back in his hotel room. From there, he attacked her. “It was like wrestling,” Shields said, crying as she recalled the assault. “I was afraid I would get choked out or something, I didn’t know. I played the scene out in my head, so I didn’t fight that much… I just absolutely froze. I just thought, ‘Stay alive and get out.’ ”
Shield recently spoke to People about finally opening up about what happened. “Everybody processes their own trauma on a different timeline,” she said. “I want to be an advocate for women to be able to speak their truth.”
Jena Malone
Hunger Games actress Jena Malone recently opened up on Instagram about being sexually assaulted while she filmed the hit four-part movie franchise. “This photo was taken right after I wrapped mocking Jay part two and I had to say goodbye to everyone on set,” she wrote in the caption, alongside a picture of her in a field. “We were shooting in a beautiful estate in the countryside of France and I asked the driver to let me out in this field so I could cry and capture this moment. Even tho this time in Paris was extremely hard for me, was going thru a bad break up and also was sexually assaulted by someone I had worked with, I was so full of gratitude for this project, the people I became close with and this amazing part I got to play. A swirling mix of emotions I’m only now just learning to sort thru.”
She continued, “I wish it wasn’t tied to such a traumatic event for me but that is the real wildness of life I guess. How to hold the chaos with the beauty. I’ve worked very hard to heal and learn thru restorative justice, how to make peace with the person who violated me and make peace with myself. It’s been hard to talk about the hunger games and Johanna Mason without feeling the sharpness of this moment in time but I’m ready to move thru it and reclaim the joy and accomplishment I felt.”
She concluded, sending a message of hope for other victims. “Lots of love to you survivors out there,” she wrote. “The process is so slow and non-linear. I want to say I’m here for anyone who needs to talk or vent or open uncommunicated spaces within themselves. Please dm me if you need a safe space to be heard.” What a necessary and heartwarming gesture.
Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton recently revealed to Glamour UK that she was drugged and raped at only 15 years old by a man she met at an L.A. mall. “One day, they invited us to their house and we’re drinking these berry wine coolers. I didn’t drink or anything back then, but then when I had maybe one or two sips, I just immediately started feeling dizzy and woozy. I don’t know what he put in there, I’m assuming it was a roofie,” she said. “I remembered it. I have visions of him on top of me, covering my mouth, being like, ‘You’re dreaming, you’re dreaming,’ and whispering that in my ear.”
She also discussed more terrifying encounters: one with a high school teacher where he tried to manipulate her and a run-in with convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein.
Gabrielle Union
Gabrielle Union once opened up about being raped at gunpoint when she was just 19 years old, but she refuses to give in to a victim mentality.
“I got sick of people letting me off the hook,” Union said in an interview on The View back in 2014, via the Daily News. “Being a victim is so comfortable. People give you attention, people are nurturing… When something catastrophic happens in your life, everyone rallies around you. You’re getting all the attention and love and support that you always wanted. But it’s not for something positive, and I hated that.
“I hated the cloak of victimhood,” she added. “I realized they were going to allow me to be a victim, and not succeed and not achieve my goals.”
Terry Crews
In October 2017, Brooklyn Nine-Nine actor Terry Crews said a Hollywood executive groped him at an industry party in February 2016. He revealed all in a series of tweets:"This whole thing with Harvey Weinstein is giving me PTSD. Why? Because this kind of thing happened to ME. My wife [and] I were at a Hollywood function last year [and] a high level Hollywood executive came over [to] me and groped my privates. Jumping back I said What are you doing?!' My wife saw everything [and] we looked at him like he was crazy. He just grinned like a jerk. I was going to kick his ass right then — but I thought twice about how the whole thing would appear. '240 lbs. Black Man stomps out Hollywood Honcho' would be the headline the next day. Hopefully, me coming forward with my story will deter a predator and encourage someone who feels hopeless."Crews filed a police report as a crime victim a month later and then filed a lawsuit against Adam Venit, the reported abuser, alleging assault, sexual battery, emotional distress and negligence. However, the case was rejected. A representative for the Los Angeles City Attorney told ABC News that "the matter was rejected because it was beyond the statute of limitations."
McKayla Maroney
Three-time Olympic gold medalist McKayla Maroney, along with more than 80 other women, accused former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Vassar of sexual abuse."I was molested by Dr. Larry Nassar, the team doctor for the US Women's National Gymnastics Team, and Olympic team," Maroney wrote in a Twitter post in October 2017. "It started when I was 13 years old, at one of my first National Team training camps, in Texas, and didn’t end until I left the sport."In January, Vassar was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison.
Jane Fonda
Grace and Frankie star Jane Fonda revealed in an interview with The EDIT that she was once raped, saying, "I've been raped, I've been sexually abused as a child and I've been fired because I wouldn’t sleep with my boss. I always thought it was my fault, that I didn't do or say the right thing."Because of her past, she established the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health in 2001. Fonda said she wants to help abuse victims "realize that [rape and abuse is] not our fault. We were violated and it's not right."
Rose McGowan
Last year, many celebs, including Angelina Jolie, Ashley Judd and Gwyneth Paltrow, came forward to detail their harrowing encounters with Harvey Weinstein. But perhaps the most vocal was Rose McGowan.
McGowan alleged that Weinstein raped her, and she has taken on the responsibility of battling the entire entertainment industry, which remained complicit in the decades-long cover-up of the tremendous amount of sexual harassment and assault that goes down in Hollywood on a regular basis. She has basically been named the voice of the Weinstein resistance.
James Van Der Beek
In the midst of the Weinstein scandal, James Van Der Beek spoke up to support all of the people who have come forward — and go public with the fact that he is a victim of Hollywood sexual assault as well.
"What Weinstein is being accused of is criminal. What he's admitted to is unacceptable — in any industry. I applaud everybody speaking out," Van Der Beek wrote in a series of tweets in October 2017. "I've had my ass grabbed by older, powerful men, I’ve had them corner me in inappropriate sexual conversations when I was much younger. I understand the unwarranted shame, powerlessness and inability to blow the whistle. There's a power dynamic that feels impossible to overcome."
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift accused David Mueller, who at the time was a radio DJ, of groping her backstage at a concert in 2013. Mueller was subsequently fired by his employer, KYGO, a country music radio station in Denver, Colorado, and sued Swift.
But Swift wasn’t about to take Mueller’s suit lying down. She filed a countersuit accusing Mueller of reaching up her dress and grabbing her butt as they posed for a photo.
“I’m not going to allow you or your client to make me feel in any way that this is my fault because it isn’t,” Swift said in court in August 2017.
After a week in court, Swift won the case in court and Mueller was ordered to pay the symbolic amount of $1.
Abigail Breslin
Abigail Breslin, who has long been an advocate for survivors of sexual assault, felt compelled to come forward about her own assault in April 2017 when one of her social media followers commented, “Reported rapes are the only rapes that count.”
“I did not report my rape. I didn’t report it because of many reasons,” Breslin wrote on social media with a trigger warning.
“First off, I was in complete shock and denial. I didn’t want to view myself as a ‘victim’ so I suppressed it and pretended it never happened… Second of all, I was in a relationship with my rapist and feared not being believed. I also feared that if my case didn’t lead anywhere, he would still find out and hurt me even more.”
Breslin also revealed that she is still dealing with the trauma of what happened to her and was diagnosed with PTSD.
“To say that rapes reported are the only rapes that count contributes to the ideology that survivors of unreported rape don’t matter,” she wrote. “It’s unfair, untrue and unhelpful. It’s like you got a black eye from getting punched in the face, but because you didn’t call the police, you didn’t really get a black eye… Unreported rapes count. Reported rapes count. End of story.”
Minnie Driver
In an interview with SiriusXM’s Stand Up! with Pete Dominick, Minnie Driver broke her silence on being sexually assaulted at just 17 years old.
“I was on vacation in Greece,” she said, “and this guy kinda elbow-grabbed me and said, ‘You’re going to dance with me.’ I said no, and I pulled my arm away from him, and he grabbed me by the back of my hair. I tried to kick him, and then he punched me.”
Not surprisingly, police blamed her for what happened.
“The way [the police] presented it was, ‘This guy was just having a good time, and if you’d gone along with it, it would’ve been fine. If you’d just danced with him, you wouldn’t be in this position that you’re in now.'”
Disgusting.
Amber Tamblyn
After Donald Trump’s grotesquely sexist 2005 conversation with Billy Bush went public in October 2016, Tamblyn was moved to share her own experience of sexual assault.
“I need to tell you a story,” she wrote in a deeply personal Instagram post. “A very long time ago I ended a long emotionally and physically abusive relationship with a man I had been with for some time. One night I was at a show with a couple girlfriends in Hollywood, listening to a DJ we all loved. I knew there was a chance my ex could show up, but I felt protected with my girls around me. Without going into all of the details, I will tell you that my ex did show up, and came up to me in the crowd. He’s a big guy, taller than me. The minute he saw me, he picked me up with one hand by my hair and with his other hand, he grabbed me under my skirt by my vagina — my pussy? — and lifted me up off the floor, literally, and carried me, like something he owned, like a piece of trash, out of the club. His fingers were practically inside of me, his other hand wrapped tightly around my hair. I screamed and kicked and cried. He carried me this way, suspended by his hands, all the way across the room, pushing past people until he got to the front door. My friends ran after him, trying to stop him. We got to the front door and I thank God his brothers were also there and intervened.
“In the scuffle he grabbed at my clothes, trying to hold onto me, screaming at me, and That part of my body, which the current Presidential Nominee of the United States Donald Trump recently described as something he’d like to grab a woman by, was bruised from my ex-boyfriend’s violence for at least the next week,” she continued. “To this day I remember that moment. I remember the shame. I am afraid my mom will read this post. I’m even more afraid that my father could ever know this story. That it would break his heart. I couldn’t take that. But you understand, don’t you? I needed to tell a story.”
Corey Feldman
Corey Feldman, who wrote a book about his and fellow child actor Corey Haim’s harrowing experiences of sexual assault in Hollywood, now uses his story as a cautionary tale for parents who want their kids to break into show business.
“People always ask me about life after childhood stardom,” Feldman wrote in his book, Coreyography: A Memoir. “What would I say to parents of children in the industry? My only advice, honestly, is to get these kids out of Hollywood and let them lead normal lives.
Nigel Barker
In honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Nigel Barker courageously revealed in April 2016 that he was sexually assaulted as a small child by a 40-year-old man.
"I went up to the door and read the names on the buzzers… I went to push it, and he pushed me from behind, jolted me through the doors and I fell to my feet inside the door," Barker recalled on his SiriusXM show Gentleman's Code. "The door closed and I'm now trapped between a stairwell inside and a shut door. I have a man who is much bigger than me push me to the ground, grab me, pull my trousers and my pants down. I'm now exposed, and I'm screaming and thrashing.
"I kicked and I actually kicked him in the nuts and he sort of jumped back for a second. Enough for me to get up, squeeze out and, as he tried to grab for me in the back of my neck and the back of my hair, I ran out," said Barker. "And I ran all the way home. Now here's the thing: I didn't tell anyone. I didn't tell my parents. I didn't tell my brothers. I told no one. I was humiliated. I was scared. I was worried. I thought I had done the wrong thing. I thought I had done the bad thing. It was something that stuck with me for a very long time."
Barker also said that he was finally moved to talk about the experience after his sister was also attacked several years later.
"Get out there. Talk about it. And don't be afraid," Barker said on his show. "Empower our children and our kids to do just that."
Kesha
Kesha bravely stood up for herself in 2014, when she sued producer Dr. Luke, who allegedly drugged and raped her while she was under his employ.
Since then, she's also spoken up for other artists who have experienced similar situations, refusing to back down or be silenced.
"So. I got offered my freedom IF i were to lie," she wrote in the caption of an April 2016 Instagram post. "I would have to APOLOGIZE publicly and say that I never got raped. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS behind closed doors. I will not take back the TRUTH. I would rather let the truth ruin my career than lie for a monster ever again."
Unfortunately, New York Judge Shirley Kornreich dismissed all of Kesha's abuse claims, writing, "While Kesha's [claim] alleges that she was sexually, physically and verbally abused by Gottwald for a decade, she describes only two specific instances of physical/sexual abuse. And the most recent event described was alleged to have happened in 2008 and so falls outside of the statute of limitations."
Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga has been a huge champion for sexual assault survivors over the past year, and she also revealed in January 2016 that she was raped when she was 19 by a much older man. She kept the assault secret for seven years because she didn't want the ordeal to define her, but her song "Till It Happens to You" very powerfully details what it feels like to be a sexual abuse victim.
"It's something that changed me forever, and it made me question everything about what I had done to be where I am today," she said in The Hollywood Reporter's podcast Awards Chatter. “I thought to myself, 'Did I do something wrong to bring this on myself? What did I do?' I choose to wear these clothes, and I choose to dress this way and sing about sex, and you wonder if you're implying to people that it's OK."
At the Oscars in 2016, she performed the song onstage accompanied by a crowd of fellow survivors, with whom she also got matching tattoos.
Lady Gaga has been extremely vocal in her support of Kesha; she frequently uses the hashtags #FreeEveryWoman and #FreeKesha and uploads posters about sexual assault to her social media accounts.
Padma Lakshmi
As a 7-year-old girl living in Queens, New York City, Padma Lakshmi was molested by a friend of her now-former stepfather, and she spoke about her experience in a March 2016 interview with People magazine.
"Once you take a girl's innocence, you can never get it back," Lakshmi said. "What I remember more is telling my mother what happened and her believing me, and telling someone else what happened and that person not believing me."
Lakshmi also detailed her account of what happened in her book Love, Loss and What We Ate.
Cheryl Burke
In a 2015 TLC documentary titled Breaking the Silence, Cheryl Burke said she was sexually abused by her neighbor as a child — and talked about how it still affects her life all these years later.
"I still go through times when I'm down. I don't feel like I'm that strong woman that people think I am today," Burke said. "I'm only human, and sometimes the stuff I've gone through, I think about all the time, and it just brings me back."
Burke ultimately helped put her abuser behind bars by testifying against him when she was just 6 years old, something that she described as "the scariest moment of my life, still to this day."
Margaret Cho
Margaret Cho revealed in September 2015 that from ages 5 to 12, she was sexually abused by a family friend.
"I had a very long-term relationship with this abuser, which is a horrible thing to say. I didn't even understand it was abuse, because I was too young to know," she said in an interview with Billboard magazine. "I endured it so many times, especially because I was alone a lot."
Cho's childhood was plagued by abuse, and she was raped by yet another family acquaintance when she was just 14 years old.
"I was raped continuously through my teenage years, and I didn't know how to stop it," she added. "It was also an era where young girls were being sexualized. For me, I think I had been sexually abused so much in my life that it was hard for me to let go of anger, forgive or understand what happened."
Cho was tormented for years by what happened and is now using music as an outlet to heal.
Jaime King
In the wake of Kesha's lawsuit against Dr. Luke and Lady Gaga's Oscars performance, Jaime King was moved to share her childhood abuse story as well.
"Thank you @ladygaga — I finally felt a true healing from years of abuse as a minor in the industry. Time to be brave," she tweeted in February 2016.
King also expanded on her abuse story on Instagram.
"SURVIVOR — Thank you to @unwomen & all organizations that have tirelessly worked to somehow comfort & make right," she wrote in the caption. "Thank you to myself to not choosing to not make this a cover story though that was what was suggested to me but to express from my heart to you all personally which felt the most honest way for me to speak | Thank you to my Soul, body, mind, emotions, my inner child, my younger self, I love you. It's a night of celebration, of change, of not being ashamed of your race, creed color, situation, circumstances and environment, or past. Now I am free, somewhat. Thank you for the switch that went off inside finally when I realized my silence said I cannot help nor change and that is not who I am. I love you all very much for creating a safe space. The time is now. I was 14 here, it started at 12. Peace Be Still."
Jep Robertson
Jep Robertson admitted that he was embarrassed to be talking about his experience with sexual assault but came forward to try to help others who have been through something similar.
Robertson revealed in his book The Good, the Bad and the Grace of God: What Honesty and Pain Taught Us About Faith, Family and Forgiveness that when he was 6 years old, he was continually abused by a much older girl on the school bus.
"I didn't want to go to school. I had a lot of absences," Robertson told ET in June 2015. "My mom always thought I was sick and there was definitely other reasons I didn't want to go to school. I think for a while I just tried to bury it so deep that I kind of forgot about it for a while."
Lena Dunham
“When I was raped, I felt powerless. I felt my value had been determined by someone else,” Lena Dunham said in her speech at Variety’s Power of Women 2015 luncheon. “Someone who sent me the message that my body was not my own and my choices were meaningless. It took years to recognize my worth was not tied to my assault. The voices telling me I deserved this were phantoms — they were liars.”
“So as a feminist and sexual assault survivor, my ultimate goal is to use my experience, my platform and, yes, my privilege to reverse stigma and give voice to other survivors.”
Ashley Judd
Ashley Judd, who is very vocal about her dismay with Internet sexual harassment, spoke up about her own personal experience with sexual violence in a 2015 essay for Identities.Mic. She wrote about the link between online harassment and misogyny:
"I am a survivor of sexual assault, rape and incest. I am greatly blessed that in 2006, other thriving survivors introduced me to recovery," Judd wrote of her assault, which occurred in 1984. "I seized it. My own willingness, partnered with a simple kit of tools, has empowered me to take the essential odyssey from undefended and vulnerable victim to empowered survivor… Today, nine years into my recovery, I can go farther and say my 'story' is not 'my story.' It is something a higher power (spirituality, for me, has been vital in this healing) uses to allow me the grace and privilege of helping others who are still hurting, and perhaps to offer a piece of education, awareness and action to our world."
Jade Roper
Like many others, The Bachelor‘s Jade Roper was inspired by Lady Gaga’s 2016 Oscars performance to share her own story of how she was raped at a party when she was 17 years old.
“I’ve been trying for hours to think of what to say here, typing and back spacing,” Roper wrote on Instagram at the time. “To be honest, I’m terrified. Yet, this is something I felt was put on my heart to write and to share and after all these years allow myself to be free of something I felt I had to hide. Lady Gaga’s performance was powerful and really moved me. I share my feelings and my story in the link I put in my bio. Hopefully, sharing my story can help others as much as it is helping me heal. Much love.”
