10 CELEBRITIES WHO ARE RAPE SURVIVORS

1. Scott Weiland

The front man for the grunge group Stone Temple Pilots revealed in his memoir that when he was 12 years old, he was raped by a senior at his high school. According to an interview on Huffingtonpost.com, the musician suppressed this memory but it came back to him in rehab.

2. Billie Holiday

Singer Billie Holiday had a tumultuous childhood, having to work from age 11 at a restaurant and being sent to Catholic reform school. When Holiday was 11, a neighbor raped her, according to Thebiographychannel.co.uk. Holiday also spent a short time working as a prostitute. Inspired by jazz instrumentalists, her vocal style helped pioneer a new way of manipulating tempo and phrasing.

3. Fiona Apple

The singer-songwriter was raped by an intruder in her New York City apartment hallway when she was 12. According to NotableBiographies.com, this incident pushed Apple to write music because she had a desire to express her emotions about the event to the world.

4. Oprah Winfrey

On the David Letterman show, Winfrey opened up about having been raped when she was 9, and having suffered several incidents of sexual attack until age 14. According to DailyMail.co.uk, it was this incident that instilled in Winfrey the immense empathy that allows her to get some of the biggest stars to open up to her about their deepest emotions.

5. Gabrielle Union

In an interview on Oprah.com, the actress opened up about the fact that when she was 19 and working in a shoe store, a robber came into the store and raped her at gunpoint. Union says keeping the right people around her encouraged her to live “survivorhood, not victimhood.”

6. Tyler Perry

The prolific screenwriter, actor and producer was the victim of several sexual assaults as a child. According to Oprah.com, Perry was molested by four different adults including a male neighbor, a man from his church and the mother of one of his friends. Perry says that as a result of the trauma, it wasn’t until his 20s that he began to understand his own sexuality.

7. Fran Drescher

When everyone’s favorite nanny from “The Nanny” was still with her husband Peter Jacobson, who came out as gay after their divorce, she and her husband were robbed. According to HuffingtonPost.com, the robber raped Drescher at gunpoint and forced her husband to watch.

8. Anne Heche

The actress once romantically involved with Ellen Degeneres spent the first 31 years of her life suffering from mental illness triggered by sexual assault. According to ABCnews.go.com, the actress’ father raped her from the time she was a toddler until she was 12. It took years of therapy to bring Heche to a place where she could tell her mother about the abuse.

9. Fantasia

In her memoir, the American Idol alum reveals that she was raped in the ninth grade in the school auditorium by a boy she had a crush on. According to ABCnews.go.com, Fantasia reported the boy, but for a while blamed herself for the incident.

10. Ashley Judd

In a press conference in Washington, D.C., the actress who is reportedly considering running for senate admitted to being a three-time rape survivor. Judd spoke about rape in February at George Washington University, according to MotherJones.com. Her stories sparked a lot of conversation and emotion in the crowd, and even inspired some in the audience to come forward with their own stories of sexual assault.