Selma Blair said she feels safe enough to “relieve that burden of shame” as she revealed details about multiple sexual assaults for the first time in her new memoir.
The Cruel Intentions star, 49, has detailed decades-long alcohol addiction, which began age seven and escalated into her teens and 20s, in her book titled Mean Baby: A Memoir Of Growing Up.
Speaking to People magazine, the actress recalled an incident during a spring break trip where she said she was raped after a day of binge-drinking.
She said: “I don’t know if both of them raped me. One of them definitely did.
“I made myself small and quiet and waited for it to be over. I wish I could say what happened to me that night was an anomaly, but it wasn’t.
“I have been raped, multiple times, because I was too drunk to say the words ‘Please. Stop’.
“Only that one time was violent. I came out of each event quiet and ashamed.”
Blair said she had never spoken about the sexual assaults, other than to her therapist, but felt it has been a key part of her healing.
She said: “Writing that stopped me dead in my tracks.
“My sense of trauma was bigger than I knew. I did not realise that assault was so central in my life. I had so much shame and blame.
“I’m grateful I felt safe enough to put it on the page. And then can work on it with a therapist and with other writing, and really relieve that burden of shame on myself.”
Sober since 2016, Blair hopes that sharing her past will help those living through similar issues.
She added: “It’s a lot. I wrote the book for my son and for people trying to find the deepest hole to crawl into until the pain passes.
“I’m in a good place. I cannot believe all this happened in my life, and I’m still here and I’m OK.”
Blair revealed in October 2018 she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a potentially debilitating disease that attacks the brain and nervous system.
