Padma Lakshmi is a world-renowned artiste and is known for being an American author, actress, model, television host, and executive producer. She is an inspiration to many women across the globe and her recent revelation is nothing but the depiction of her strength. Padma Laxmi recently took to Twitter to reveal a hard-hitting truth about her life in the light of recent events.
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It was 32 years ago that Padma Lakshmi was raped at the age of 16 and if you’re thinking why she revealed it after all these years then here’s your answer. Talking about the reason that led her to reveal the ordeal she went through, in an article for the New York Times, she wrote:
I have been turning that incident over in my head throughout the past week, as two women have come forward to detail accusations against the Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Christine Blasey Ford said he climbed on her and covered her mouth during an attempted rape when they were both in high school, and Deborah Ramirez said he exposed himself to her when they were in college.
She further added:
On Friday, President Trump tweeted that if what Dr. Blasey said was true, she would have filed a police report years ago. But I understand why both women would keep this information to themselves for so many years, without involving the police. For years, I did the same thing. On Friday, I tweeted about what had happened to me so many years ago.
She went on to say:
When I was 16 years old, I started dating a guy I met at the Puente Hills Mall in a Los Angeles suburb. I worked there after school at the accessories counter at Robinsons-May. He worked at a high-end men’s store. He would come in wearing a gray silk suit and flirt with me. He was in college, and I thought he was charming and handsome.He was 23.
When we went out, he would park the car and come in and sit on our couchand talk to my mother. He never brought me home late on a school night.We were intimate to a point, but he knew that I was a virgin and that I was unsure of when I would be ready to have sex.
On New Year’s Eve, just a few months after we first started dating, he raped me.
The two of us had gone to a couple of parties. Afterward, we went to his apartment. While we were talking, I was so tired that I lay on the bed and fell asleep. The next thing I remember is waking up to a very sharp stabbing pain like a knife blade between my legs. He was on top of me. I asked, “What are you doing?” He said, “It will only hurt for a while.” “Please don’t do this,” I screamed.
I didn’t report it. Not to my mother, not to my friends and certainly not to the police. At first I was in shock. That evening, I let my mother know when I was home, then went to sleep, hoping to forget that night.
She also spoke about how it had affected her and said:
These experiences have affected me and my ability to trust. It took me decades to talk about this with intimate partners and a therapist. Some say a man shouldn’t pay a price for an act he committed as a teenager. But the woman pays the price for the rest of her life, and so do the people who love her. I think if I had at the time named what happened to me as rape — and told others — I might have suffered less. Looking back, I now think I let my rapist off the hook and I let my 16-year-old self down.
She explained why she had finally come forward to speak about it:
I am speaking now because I want us all to fight so that our daughters never know this fear and shame and our sons know that girls’ bodies do not exist for their pleasure and that abuse has grave consequences. Those messages should be very clear as we consider whom we appoint to make decisions on the highest court of our land.
It is sickening to see how many people have faced such an ordeal. I applaud and respect Padma Lakshmi’s decision to come forward and speak about this and the intention behind doing so.