Sunny Hostin Calls Domestic Violence an “Epidemic Hiding in Plain Sight” After Chris Brown Doc
The View co-host Sunny Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, wants viewers who watched the Chris Brown: A History of Violence documentary Sunday night to know that intimate partner violence has no boundaries.
“Domestic violence is an epidemic hiding in plain sight. It doesn’t discriminate. In that respect, wealth has little to do with many instances,” Hostin told The Hollywood Reporter on Friday, ahead of hosting the aftershow discussion on domestic violence that aired after the Investigation Discovery doc on Chris Brown.
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The doc explored Brown’s years of alleged offstage aggression, including intimate-partner violence, assault charges and sexual assault allegations that first came to light in 2009 when the star rapper pled guilty to a felony charge of physically assaulting former girlfriend Rihanna.
“That was not an isolated incident. It only got attention because there’s a big name attached to it. And our goal is to say: This is happening to so many people and you are not alone,” said Hostin, who is also a board member at Safe Horizon, a national organization working to reduce relationship violence and abuse.
Progress to stem domestic violence, she added, will not be made if allegations and cases around celebrity abusers are sensationalized and the stories of ordinary survivors are not heard. “This is something that doesn’t only happen to famous people. It doesn’t only happen to Rihanna. It doesn’t only happen with an R. Kelly or a P. Diddy or a Harvey Weinstein or a Jeffrey Epstein,” Hostin insisted.
The legal system can hold domestic and intimate partner abusers to account, but without the media attention given to high-profile cases involving the rich and famous. Given the scale of the problem, Hostin said she jumped at the opportunity to host the after-premiere panel for the Brown doc to offer tools and resources to educate viewers on how to identify abuse and stop domestic violence. Hostin was joined by experts and advocates including NO MORE co-founder Jane Randel, CEO of The National Domestic Violence Hotline; Katie Ray-Jones, Miss Kansas 2024 and Advocate for Healthy Relationships; Alexis Smith, cultural journalist Scaachi Koul; and psychologist Dr. Carolyn West.
“It’s very important to know if it’s happening to a friend, a family member, it may even be happening to you. Because part of this is isolation, psychological abuse, financial abuse, sometimes sexual abuse is involved, as well as mental abuse,” she added.
Hostin pointed out that abusers without wealth have enablers, too. “I’ve been told [survivor] stories that they have reached out to family members and either they don’t believe them, or they try to convince them to stay with their abusers. This actually does happen,” she argued.
When asked about the post-#MeToo entertainment industry — following Harvey Weinstein’s criminal conviction and imprisonment, and now a jailed Sean “Diddy” Combs awaiting a criminal trial that includes racketeering conspiracy charges — where powerful celebrities can build a network of enablers to carry out their sexual abuse, Hostin insisted bad people prosper when good people don’t come forward.
“Oftentimes people see things and they don’t speak up for whatever reason — maybe their job is at stake. Perhaps they don’t recognize the signs. The enabling portion is extremely troubling,” she said, adding that the doc and her after-premiere discussion are crucial to offering tools to allow domestic violence survivors to come forward, share their stories and be an example to others.
“[Domestic violence] does thrive in silence and people do unfortunately enable the behavior by not pointing it out and by not talking about it,” she warned.
When speaking to THR earlier in the week, ID President Jason Sarlanis said the Brown doc, which will also help launch ID’s third annual No Excuse for Abuse campaign, aims to “normalize surviving.”
The doc had an extended interview with Jane Doe, an accuser who in December 2020, was invited to a party held by fellow rapper Diddy on Star Island, where she alleged Brown raped her in a bedroom on a yacht. The doc follows the recent arrest and criminal charges brought against Diddy, who will also become the subject of an upcoming ID docuseries that is set for a 2025 release.
When the ID doc producers reached out to Brown and his representatives, an attorney for the singer said the allegations in the program were “malicious and false.”
“This [Chris Brown] documentary acts as a cautionary tale for our audience to the extent it exemplifies the patterns and cycles of abuse that happen among men and women who are perpetuators of domestic violence. Being able to shine a light on that is really valuable for our viewers,” Sarlanis told THR.
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