Reese Witherspoon Reveals She Was Sexually Assaulted For The First Time When She Was 16-Years-Old

Reese Witherspoon has revealed she was sexually assaulted in Hollywood, and it happened for the first time when she was just 16 but that wasn’t the last time.

During her speech at the Elle Women in Hollywood event, the actress talked about what women all over the world have faced.

“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 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 about anxiety, honest, the guilt for not speaking up earlier.”

Furthermore she said she feels really irritated at the director who assaulted her when she was 16-years-old and anger at those who made her feel keeping quiet was a condition of her employment.

“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. But after hearing all the stories these past few days and hearing these brave women speak up tonight about things that we’re kind of told to sweep under the rug and not to talk about, 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.”

Adding that, lots of people need to speak up and tell their truth so they can heal.

“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.”