Actress Reese Witherspoon revealed that she was sexually assaulted by a director when she was 16 years old and was kept from speaking out by agents and producers who made her "feel that silence was a condition" of her employment.
Witherspoon, now 41, made the jarring revelation in a speech at a Hollywood event on Monday. She joins dozens of women who have come forward to expose a culture of sexual assault, and worse, which has gripped Tinseltown for decades.
“This has been a really hard week for women in Hollywood, for women all over the world, and a lot of situations and a lot of industries are forced to remember and relive a lot of ugly truths,” Witherspoon, an Oscar winner, said. “I have my own experiences that have come back to me very vividly and I find it really hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate a lot of the feelings that I’ve been having."
Witherspoon said that she feels guilty for not speaking up earlier.
“[I feel] true disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment,” the actress said. “And I wish that I could tell you that was an isolated incident in my career, but sadly it wasn’t. I’ve had multiple experiences of harassment and sexual assault and I don’t speak about them very often.”
Witherspoon was inspired to reveal her painful past by the women who have come forward with their own stories of sexual assault and rape in the wake of a New York Times story about decades of sexual abuse allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
"It’s made me want to speak up and speak up loudly because I actually felt less alone this week than I have ever felt in my entire career,” Witherspoon said. “I have just spoken to so many actresses and writers, particularly women, who have had similar experiences and many of them have bravely gone public with their stories. That truth is very encouraging to me and everyone out there in the world because you can only heal by telling the truth.”
Witherspoon feels encouraged that things in Hollywood will change as a result of the unraveling scandal.
"For the young women in this room, life is going to be different because we’re with you, we have your back and it makes me feel better," Witherspoon said, concluding, "it makes me so sad to talk about these issues, but I would be remiss not to.