We’re in a new era of the #MeToo movement. A growing list of well-known people are adding their stories to the conversation about sexual assault.
For survivors, media coverage of each new revelation can be distressing, forcing them to relive what happened to them. Some survivors are inspired and are coming forward to tell friends and loved ones about their experiences. Often, the reaction is not what they expected.
“People can be traumatised, not just by the event itself but again later if the people and institutions they disclose to respond negatively,” says Jennifer J. Freyd, PhD, a professor emerit of psychology at the University of Oregon in Eugene and the founder and president of the Center for Institutional Courage. (A university, law enforcement, or the government are examples of these institutions.) The impacts of sexual assault can last a lifetime, putting survivors at an increased risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, maladaptive behaviours such as eating disorders, and heart disease, says Dr. Freyd.
For someone who may be inspired by other people, including celebrities who have spoken out about their experiences, try to prepare for their possible response and put a coping strategy in place if that reaction is negative.
Why might that happen? Ideas on how a survivor should behave are pervasive – and damaging. “There’s the thought that, surely any victim would do this or that. But what they say any victim would have done is actually really rare,” says Matt J. Gray, PhD, a clinical psychology professor at the University of Wyoming in Laramie and an expert in sexual violence prevention and traumatic stress.
One of those actions is reporting the incident to police – or even telling anyone at all. In a survey published by the University of Wyoming in June 2018 produced by Dr. Gray and his colleagues, 27 percent of 1,913 students reported experiencing a sexual assault while at the university. But half those assaulted didn’t tell anyone, and only about 7 percent told law enforcement.
“The biggest concern [that] I think prevents disclosure is the fear of not being believed,” says Gray. “If you look at the comments under any article on the internet, you see that this isn’t an invalid fear.”
What’s more, when people recount their sexual assaults, they may express anger, be confused about what happened, or appear that they’re not telling the truth. “There are a whole host of reactions that may lead people to not believe them,” says Freyd.
As you listen to women and men tell their own stories, the best thing you can do is offer support. If someone discloses a sexual assault to you, it can be tough to know exactly how to respond.
“Say, ‘I’m sorry that happened to you. I believe you. How can I support you?’” says Gray. “Then be prepared to listen.”
For celebrities who come forward, they help fellow survivors know they’re not alone. Here are some who have taken this step.
ALYSSA MILANO
Credited with boosting the #MeToo movement on Twitter in 2017, Alyssa Milano says she was sexually assaulted as a teen but stayed quiet about it. Thirty years later, Milano wrote about her story in Vox. “It took me years after my assault to voice the experience to my closest friends. It took me three decades to tell my parents that the assault had even happened. I never filed a police report. I never told officials. I never tried to find justice for my pain because justice was never an option,” she wrote. “For me, speaking up meant reliving one of the worst moments of my life. It meant recognising my attacker’s existence when I wanted nothing more than to forget that he was allowed to walk on this earth at all. This is what every survivor goes through. Telling our stories means being vulnerable to public attacks and ridicule when our only ‘crime’ was to be assaulted in the first place.”
BROOKE SHIELDS
The model and actor endured criticism in the late 1970s and early 1980s for playing sexualised roles as a child in films like Pretty Baby and Blue Lagoon. She described the impact that growing up in the spotlight had on her in a 2023 documentary, Brooke Shields: Pretty Baby. Among many other revelations, she disclosed that she was sexually assaulted as a young woman by a Hollywood producer.
Shields told People magazine in March of 2023 that she blamed herself for the attack, and felt like she couldn’t come forward. “People weren’t believing those stories back then. I thought I would never work again,” she says. Shields says she’s telling the story after more than 30 years to encourage other survivors. “Everybody processes their own trauma on a different timeline. I want to be an advocate for women to be able to speak their truth,” she says.
JENA MALONE
The Hunger Games actor says she was sexually assaulted by someone she worked with during filming of the blockbuster series. In February of 2023, Malone posted a photo of herself on Instagram taken shortly after finishing her role in 2015’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2. She described a mix of emotions during that time, saying she “was going thru a bad break up and also was sexually assaulted by someone [she] had worked with,” but was also feeling “so full of gratitude for this project, the people I became close with and this amazing part I got to play.” She offered support to other survivors, and said she’s “worked very hard to heal and learn through restorative justice, how to make peace with the person who violated me, and make peace with myself.”
GABRIELLE UNION
The actor revealed to Redbook in 2018 that she suffered PTSD after her book tour for her memoir, We’re Going to Need More Wine. Union had previously revealed in an essay for the Los Angeles Times that she was raped at gunpoint when she worked at a Payless shoe store 26 years ago. On her book tour, people approached her to tell their own stories of sexual assault. “I didn’t realise how big the need was for so many people to just get it out, to have someone look them in the eye and say, ‘I believe you.’ I cried a lot. I Skyped a lot with my life coach, because the horrors that I was taking in triggered my PTSD.”
LUCY HALE
The Pretty Little Liars actor opened up in early 2018 on Twitter and Instagram saying, “I never understood sexual assault until tonight,” reported People. (The posts were deleted.) In a later interview, Lucy Hale explained more: “I think there are a lot of people who have been intoxicated and taken advantage of. It’s happened to me and people I know. It’s very common … Luckily, I’ve been unscathed; nothing’s hurt me too badly.”
LENA DUNHAM
Lena Dunham shared her story of sexual assault in her book, Not That Kind of Girl, and received some serious backlash, with reporters trying to find her attacker and questioning if she regretted being drunk that night, and her “character and credibility questioned at every turn,” the Girls creator explained in an essay for BuzzFeed. “Like so many women who have been sexually assaulted, I did not report the incident to my college or to the police. … I was afraid no one would believe me.”
LADY GAGA
The lyrics in pop star Lady Gaga’s song “Til It Happens to You” detail just how complicated the aftermath of surviving a rape at age 19 is, as reported in Vanity Fair: “You tell me it gets better, it gets better in time / You say I’ll pull myself together, pull it together, you’ll be fine / Tell me, what the hell do you know? What do you know?” Gaga explained that blame is a common thread that runs through many survivors. “Because of the way that I dress, and the way that I’m provocative as a person, I thought that I had brought it on myself in some way,” she said, noting that it took years of therapy for her to begin to heal.
ANNALYNNE MCORD
Art imitated life when AnnaLynne McCord’s character on 90210 was raped. In one scene, McCord says she broke down and sobbed. “My cast mates thought I had done a great job playing the part. They had no idea that I had actually been sexually assaulted by someone I knew in real life,” she told Cosmopolitan in an essay. “I’m telling my story now because I think it’s time to talk about the truth. When I was a kid, my candour got me in a lot of trouble, and I learned to stay quiet, to keep my feelings to myself. But no more. I’m in spiritual warrior mode.”
AMY SCHUMER
In promoting her book The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo in 2016, Amy Schumer said that her then boyfriend raped her while she was sleeping, reported Marie Claire. She said that she comforted him after because she loved him – and that she knows her story doesn’t fit everyone’s idea of rape. “It’s not this ‘perfect rape.’ People want you to have been raped perfectly and they want you to be a perfect victim,” she wrote in her book.
BRENDAN FRASER
It’s important to remember that not all survivors of sexual assault are women. In a 2018 story in GQ, the actor Brendan Fraser recalled a 2003 incident in which he alleges he was groped by Philip Berk, the former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. (Berk denies this.) “I felt ill. I felt like a little kid. I felt like there was a ball in my throat. I thought I was going to cry,” the actor said in the interview. Fraser says he was reluctant to go public with what happened. “I didn’t want to contend with how that made me feel, or it becoming part of my narrative,” he said.
TERRY CREWS
The former NFL player and Brooklyn Nine-Nine actor tweeted in 2017 that an executive at a Hollywood event groped his privates in front of his wife. “This whole thing with Harvey Weinstein is giving me PTSD. Why? Because this kind of thing happened to ME,” Terry Crews wrote. After the incident, he said the executive “grinned like a jerk.” The executive’s identity was revealed when Crews filed a sexual assault lawsuit against the WME agent Adam Venit, who stepped down from his position this September. (Crews posted Venit’s apology letter on Twitter.)
VIOLA DAVIS
The Academy Award–winning actor Viola Davis opened up at the Rape Foundation’s annual brunch while being honoured at the event. “Myself, my mother, my sisters, my friend Rebecca, my friend from childhood, we all have one thing in common: We are all survivors of sexual assault in some way, shape, or form,” she said, according to People.
EVAN RACHEL WOOD
The Westworld star told Rolling Stone in an email following an interview that she was raped twice. “I’ve been raped,” Evan Rachel Wood said. “By a significant other while we were together. And on a separate occasion, by the owner of a bar. … I don’t believe we live in a time where people can stay silent any longer.”
