Photo Credit: Zayrha Rodriguez/NPR
Hollywood actress Kerry Washington, recognized for her roles in "Scandal" and Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained," candidly shared her reflections on the profound impact of sexual assault on her life. Speaking at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at the University of Southern California, Washington delved into her September 2023 memoir, "Thicker Than Water," which chronicles her journey of self-discovery.
At the event, Washington revealed how the trauma of sexual assault shaped her identity and perception of truth. Recounting her experience, she emphasized the struggle to reconcile her intuition with the gaslighting she endured. "It was one of the early instances in my life when someone denied the truth to me, causing me to doubt my intuition," she disclosed to Erika D. Smith.
"Thicker Than Water" unveils a pivotal revelation in Washington's life: the discovery that her biological father differed from the man she had known as her dad. This revelation, occurring in 2018 when she was 41, profoundly impacted her sense of self and truth.
In her memoir, Washington bravely disclosed her experience of sexual assault, explaining its significance in her journey of self-discovery. She explained, "The version of the story that I want to tell is the version of figuring out the truth of who I am and what were the obstacles that got in the way of me being able to know my truth and experience my truth."
Detailing the assault, Washington recounted incidents from her childhood, where she attended sleepovers in the Bronx. During these gatherings, one of the boys in her neighborhood allegedly touched her without her consent, only to deny it when confronted. This denial and gaslighting from her abuser, added to her struggle to trust her instincts. "When I approached the person who was doing it, he told me that it was in my imagination and that I didn't know what I was talking about and that I was crazy," she shared.
"And that became a framework that I found myself fighting against a lot of my life, that if I had an instinctive thought about something, an intuitive idea about something, there was another thread of messaging in my brain that said, 'You're crazy. You don't know what you're talking about. That's not really true.' "
"And so that's what I feel like I've spent a lot of my life trying to beat back the messaging that I don't know my own truth," she went on.
Much like her parents hiding the truth about her DNA from her, Washington never told them about her experiences during the sleepovers. This secrecy contributed to her sense of mistrust and unease within her family environment.
At the Book Festival, she reflected on how her parents' revelation about her biology granted her the opportunity to reclaim her sense of self-trust. "When they gave me this truth about my genetics, one of the things they gave me was really a way back to myself, a way back to trusting myself and being able to trust my own intuitive knowing and value the messages in my brain as truth and not being crazy,'' she said.
