Vanessa Williams Reveals She Was Molested, Had an Abortion
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ABC/Donna Svennevik(NEW YORK) — In her new memoir, entitled You Have No Idea, actress Vanessa Williams opens up about very painful moments in her childhood.
One incident happened when she was just 10-years-old. While vacationing with family and friends, Williams reveals she was molested by an 18-year-old girl.
In an interview Tuesday on ABC’s Nightline, Williams revealed, “It happened one night where she told me, ‘come over here,’…I didn’t know that it was wrong, but I knew that it wasn’t right because I wasn’t supposed to tell anybody.”
The Desperate Housewives actress says it wasn’t until years later, while in college, did she understand what happened to her.
“I think I was highly sexualized because I was in fifth grade and I had this experience,” Williams said. “Because it feels good, you’re like, OK, well this is supposed to be normal. That’s not normal for a 10-year-old to be seduced.”
Williams’ mother Helen, who co-wrote the memoir, says she was unaware of Vanessa’s molestation, or the fact her daughter had an abortion in high school.
“I knew in high school that’s something that I was not prepared to do, or fight, or struggle with,” Williams said of her decision.
“[I] had no idea that that had happened,” Helen Williams tells Nightline. “But in retrospect, it kind of put into place some of her reactions during her preteen years.”
You Have No Idea: A Famous Daughter, Her No-Nonsense Mother, and How They Survived Pageants, Hollywood, Love, Loss (And Each Other), the full title of the memoir, is on bookshelves and e-readers now.
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