has revealed that she was raped ‘multiple times’ over the years, explaining that she felt ‘ashamed’ over her past.
The Legally Blonde actress shared a harrowing account of her life in her new book, Mean Baby, in which she and her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis.
In an extract from her memoir, the 49-year-old spoke of her alcohol abuse escalating when she was younger, and recalled being sexually assaulted during a spring break trip at university, after a day of binge-drinking.
‘I don’t know if both of them raped me. One of them definitely did,’ she wrote in the pages obtained by . ‘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.’
Speaking to the outlet, she said that she had never discussed the assaults publicly, but addressing it had been a turning point in her healing.
‘Writing that stopped me dead in my tracks,’ she said. ‘My sense of trauma was bigger than I knew. I did not realize 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.’
Selma, who has been sober since 2016, added that she is now in a ‘good place’, and hoped her experiences can help others in similar situations.
The Cruel Intentions star has kept out of the spotlight since 2018, when she shared that she had been diagnosed with MS.
The lifelong condition damages nerves in the body and makes it difficult for sufferers to do everyday things – there is currently no cure, with symptoms including fatigue, issues with vision and difficulty walking.
She recently and an ‘aggressive’ course of chemotherapy in a bid to restart her immune system and, speaking ahead of the release of her documentary last year, confirmed that the results had been positive.
‘My prognosis is great. I’m in remission. Stem cell put me in remission. It took about a year after stem cell for the inflammation and lesions to really go down,’ she said at a press conference.
Understandably, The Sweetest Thing star kept the news private for a few months as she explained: ‘I was reluctant to talk about it because I felt this need to be more healed and more fixed. I’ve accrued a lifetime of some baggage in the brain that still needs a little sorting out or accepting.
‘That took me a minute to get to that acceptance. It doesn’t look like this for everyone. I have really felt unwell and misunderstood for so long that it’s just, me.’
