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Boom Actress Padma Lakshmi: I Was Molested At The Age Of 7 By A Relative
Padma Lakshmi says that she was molested at the age of 7 by a relative and was raped at the age of 16 by her boyfriend during the New Year's night 30 years ago.
Model and actress Padma Lakshmi, who starred in Amitabh Bachchan and Katrina Kaif's Boom in 2003, opened up about the horrors that she's faced during her childhood, by saying that she was molested by a relative at the age of 7 and raped by her boyfriend at the age of 16. "When I was 7 years old, my stepfather's relative touched me between my legs and put my hand on his erect penis. Shortly after I told my mother and stepfather, they sent me to India for a year to live with my grandparents. The lesson was: If you speak up, you will be cast out," she said to NY Times.
She revealed that she was raped at the age of 16 during the New Year's party around 30 years ago by her 23-year-old boyfriend. "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."
I Was Not Ready For Sex, Said Padma Lakshmi
"When we went out, he would park the car and come in and sit on our couch and 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."
I Was Raped On New Year's Night
"On New Year's Eve, just a few months after we first started dating, he raped me," and further added, "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."
I Screamed To Him, Please Don't Do This
"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. The pain was excruciating, and as he continued, my tears felt like fear. Afterward, he said, 'I thought it would hurt less if you were asleep. Then he drove me home."
I Didn't Report The Incident To Anyone
"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."
Will This Awaken The #MeToo Movement In India?
Now that Tanushree Dutta has openly named Nana Patekar citing that he sexually harassed her on the sets of Horn OK Please in 2008 and even the Boom actress Padma Lakshmi has opened up about her horrors of being sexually assaulted, we hope the #MeToo movement will get a firm root in India and bring the harassers out in the open.
