I was molested at the age of 7 and raped at 16, says Padma Lakshmi
American TV author and actor Padma Lakshmi recently revealed she was molested as a child and raped as a teen.
Lakshmi wrote an op-ed for The New York Times, in reference to sexual assault accusations against US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. In her piece, the model mentioned she was 7 when assaulted and 16 when raped.
Narrating the second incident, Lakshmi said she dated a 23-year-old college student when 16, who would “flirt” with her at her parttime job in a Los Angeles mall. A few months later, he sexually assaulted her while she was asleep.
“We were intimate to a point, but he knew I was a virgin and that I was unsure of when I would be ready to have sex.” On New Year’s Eve three decades ago, Lakshmi said after a night out with him, she fell asleep at his apartment. “The next thing I remember is waking up to a very sharp stabbing pain between my legs. He was on top of me,” she wrote. “I asked, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘It will only hurt for a while’.”
Unaware of what date rape meant, Lakshmi said she was unsure whether the incident classified as rape or sex, but continued to tell future boyfriends that she was a virgin. “Emotionally, I still was,” she noted.
Lakshmi added at the age of 7, she was sent to India to live with her grandparents for a year after she told her mother and stepfather a relative touched her inappropriately and put her hand on his penis. “The lesson was: If you speak up, you will be cast out.”
“I have nothing to gain by talking about this. But we all have a lot to lose if we put a time limit on telling the truth about sexual assault and hold on to the codes of silence that, for generations, have allowed men to hurt women with impunity,” she concluded.