Amy Schumer makes her living telling jokes, but the 35-year-old has no qualms about publicly discussing the darkest experiences of her life in hopes of offering hope and insight to others who may endured similar traumas.
Last month Schumer opened up about her first sexual experience, revealing to Marie Claire that the experience left her emotionally scarred.
Today, the actress and stand-up went into greater detail in a candid interview with Howard Stern.
Schumer told Stern that she was watching TV with her high school boyfriend and “in and out of sleep” when she realized that he was inside of her.
She revealed she not only declined to press charges, but stayed with the boyfriend and even comforted him after the incident, all of which, she says, later made her feel invalidated as a survivor of sexual abuse.
She addressed the notion of the “imperfect victim” while speaking with Stern today:
“People, they want you to have been raped perfectly, and they want you to be a perfect victim.
“People hear me say that and they go, ‘No, she’s like a slut’ and ‘I bet she knew’ – like, right away, you start doubting,” Schumer said this morning,” she continued.
“We’re so critical and it makes victims really not wanna speak up, and so I think it’s me saying, ‘Look, I didn’t have a perfect rape.’”
Schumer also opened up about a past abusive relationship in which she says the mistreatment escalated to the point that she began to fear for her life:
“At first I would get hurt by accident, it would be like he’d grab me too hard and then I’d get a bad bruise, or he’d like push me a little and I’d like fall into something and get a worse injury, and these things I could kind of excuse.
“It just hit me like a ton of bricks, he’s going to kill me eventually, and I need to get out of here.
“And honestly a big thought of why I did was for my little sister. I just thought, I cannot — I can’t do this to her.
“I can’t let her get this phone call.”
Schumer has never shied away from difficult subjects in the past, such as when she spoke out in favor of gun control in the wake of a shooting at a theater that was showing her movie Trainwreck last year.
Just last week, Schumer stood by victims of sexual assault when her friend and former collaborator Kurt Metzger made jokes about rape on social media.
Schumer released her first collection of humorus essays, The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo, last week.
The book became an instant best-seller.
