Mariska Hargitay Opened Up About Her Sexual Assault in an Emotional Essay
glamour.comand through her real-world activism, has been standing up for survivors of sexual assault for decades. Now she's her own advocate.In a candid essay for , Hargitay revealed that, when she was in her 30s, she was raped.
Like many victims, she said, she knew her assailant and describes a feeling of being “outside” her own body. She also explained that, in the aftermath of the assault, she had tried to erase the event from her memory.“I couldn’t believe that it happened,” Hargitay wrote. “That it could happen.
So I cut it out. I removed it from my narrative. I now have so much empathy for the part of me that made that choice because that part got me through it.
It never happened. Now I honor that part: I did what I had to do to survive.”Hargitay wrote that she hopes to help ease the shame sexual assault survivors often feel, but also, like her iconic character, she wants to end sexual violence altogether.
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