Evan Rachel Wood has opened up about a pair of sexual assaults.
In an email exchange with a reporter from Rolling Stone, the veteran actress talked briefly about both incidents and also explained why she has chosen to make them public.
Scroll down to learn about what happened and why Wood is speaking about it now…
“I’ve been raped,” the 29-year old Westworld star wrote. “By a significant other while we were together. And on a separate occasion, by the owner of a bar.”
And this is the basis for Wood making these horrible incidents known to the world;
“I don’t believe we live in a time where people can stay silent any longer. Not given the state our world is in with its blatant bigotry and sexism.”
Without naming the President-Elect and without getting into the specifics of the 2016 Presidential campaign, Wood is clearly making a reference here to Donald Trump and his rhetoric.
Along with the rhetoric of many of his supporters.
Wood has described herself as gender-fluid in the past; she came out as bisexual in 2011.
However, the actress tells Rolling Stone that she realized she was attracted to women around a very young age, four or five.
“It was always talked about like a phase or something stupid, or something you were doing for attention,” she explains to the publication, adding:
“You know, bisexuality is worthy of eye rolls. And I didn’t realize how damaging that was until I tried to have healthy relationships as an adult and realized that there was still all this shame and conditioning and stigma around my sexuality that was really affecting the way I related to people.
“I think I was taken advantage of because someone knew there was something about me that they could exploit.”
But Wood gave birth to a son with ex-husband Jamie Bell in 2013 and she says it changed her outlook on life.
Becoming a mother helped her learn how to celebrate her sexuality.
“I had my son, and that changed everything,” she says of her only child, whose name she has never revealed. “It got me out of my own s–t. I just couldn’t be what I was not.”
That’s admirable, don’t you think?
Teaching one’s son or daughter to be true to who he or she is has to be one of the most important lessons any parent can pass along.
Then there’s Westworld, the crazy and confusing and dramatic series on HBO that is set to soon wrap up a popular first season.
How has her role on this series also altered her viewpoint?
“I mean, your demons never fully leave,” Wood says.
“But when you’re using them to create something else, it almost gives them a purpose and feels like none of it was in vain. I think that’s how I make peace with it.
“Westworld? Good God. I left so much in that first season and never looked back.”
We salute Wood for speaking out on such an important topic and we wish her the best of luck moving forward.
