The '90210' actress opens up to Cosmo about enduring a sexual assault.
Actress AnnaLynne McCord is the latest celebrity to open up about sexual abuse that she suffered in the past and says in a new interview she hopes that sharing her experience will help other abused women come forward.
"One night, a guy friend called. He said he needed a good night's sleep for a meeting, as he'd been crashing on someone's couch. I had known him for some time, so I said to come over and I set him up with a clean towel. We sat on the bed and talked for a while, then I fell asleep. When I woke up, he was inside me," the 26-year-old Dallas and 90201 star tells the July issue of Cosmopolitan -- on newsstands June 3rd -- about how the incident began when she was 18 years old.
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McCord said that initially she barely reacted due to shock and fear. "At first, I felt so disoriented and numb, I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. I wondered if I had done something to give him the wrong idea. I felt afraid of making him angry. Believe it or not, I didn't want to offend him. I just wanted it to be over."
She added: "And then, suddenly, my thoughts took a practical turn: I could get an STD. I could get pregnant. I have a boyfriend. I said, 'Please, don't!' He stopped and went in the bathroom and finished. I lay there and stared at the ceiling for the rest of the night, frozen.
"At dawn, I wrote a note to him and left. I sat outside in a car and waited for him to leave. When he did, I went back inside, took a shower, and pretended it hadn't happened," she said. "Then one night, I did go to a club with friends, and I saw him there. We
made eye contact and I felt like throwing up. I turned and ran,
sprinting into traffic."
She recalls that despite landing a role on the TV series Nip/Tuck, playing a character who was confident, sexy and audacious, she was privately going through a rough time. "I would drive to a secluded place, park underneath a tree, and write dark poetry on my arm, then slice myself with a massively sharp knife, rubbing in the blood."
McCord said at one point her attacker even approached her in a club, where she told him, "You know what happened." She said he responded back, "What are you saying? What we had that night was beautiful." At this point she reveals she was angered and told a male friend, "He raped me!"
The actress admits that the assault so deeply affected her that she got profusely depressed and actually had "pills and water in hand and thought seriously about killing myself" before her sister Angel called her in that moment and she stopped herself.
In the article, McCord gives a message to young women everywhere. "Most of all, I have my message for women and girls: You have a voice. Don't put yourself in a box. Don't let the polite lies of society silence you. Honestly, I would endure everything all over again -- it has led me to my own revolution."
