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It took 10 years for AnnaLynne McCord to stop blaming herself for the rape she experienced as a teenager.
The 29-year-old 90210 actress gave a harrowing interview to the BBC on Wednesday in honor of International Women’s Day, where she spoke again about her assault and what she’s learned now that could help other survivors.
Recounting the incident, McCord noted how her rape happened in a different way than those often described by society.
“I was never raped in these scenarios they tell you you’re going to get raped in,” she said. “I was in my own home. Let a friend come stay at my place because [he] needed to crash. And I woke up to find my Southern hospitality, if you want to call it that, was being greatly taken advantage of. I woke up, and he was inside me — and my whole body shut down.”
At the time, McCord was just 18-years-old and living in Los Angeles where she was pursuing a career as an actress. Though she had grown up the pastor’s daughter in a devoutly Christian household, she had also experienced strict discipline from her parents as a child.
Leaving home at 15, she admits to going “a little crazy-wild in New York, dancing on tables wearing little miniskirts.”
Those things combined made her feel responsible for her own rape — though she admits now “how I dress does not mean yes.”
“For 10 years I thought it was my fault,” she said. “I didn’t fight back. I found out recently through my studies of neuroscience that my body completely shut everything down and wouldn’t let me fight back because I thought that was the only way to cope with abuse.”
AnnaLynne McCord Admits She Self-Harmed and Was ‘Suicidal’ After Being Raped By a Friend in Her Own Home
After the incident happened, McCord said she completely shut down.
“I wasn’t the one seeking any kind of solace or consolation from what happened — I pretended like it didn’t occur and went on with my life,” she explained. “I thought I was fine and continued ‘living,’ if you want to call that living.”
“I became very, very dark,” she added. “Suicidal. Self-harming – cutting up my arms.”
But she also found herself drawn to charity work, especially with survivors of the Cambodian sex trade.
“I fight human trafficking, working with survivors of consistent rape every day — all day,” she said. “We’re working to get them back to some sort of normalcy.”
When she was asked by writers on 90210 if she was comfortable playing a storyline in which her character Naomi was raped by a teacher, McCord jumped at the chance thinking of her charity work — but not realizing her own connection to the material.
“The producers came down and asked, ‘Would you want to portray this — it’s very dark.’ It was the story of my character being raped. And I was like, ‘Yes, this is such an important topic,’ ” she said. “It was something I was really excited to tackle.”
“I did months and months of episodes,” McCord continued. “I was in to a second season of the storyline when I had a moment on set and what happened to me all came back in a flash.”
Since then, she hasn’t looked back — first revealing her story in a May 2014 Cosmopolitan piece and since taking her message to college campuses with her short film, I Choose.
“The support has been amazing,” she previously told PEOPLE. “You think in your head that the opposite is going to happen. You think that you’ll be shamed and there will be even more degradation, humiliation. And the opposite has been apparent. But what’s even more important than that to me has been the outreach from survivors who are telling me their stories.”
She said thousands victims have reach outed to her about their own experiences — emails that she personally takes the time to answer.
“Eighty percent of them have told me for the very first time – a complete stranger, someone they don’t even know, a random actress in Los Angeles – because I said, ‘Hey, I was raped too and it’s okay,’ ” McCord shared. “And the ‘it’s okay’ part is the most crucial part.”
Model Hunter McGrady knows the importance of proper clothing selection. The rising star walked the iHeartRadio Music Awards red carpet in an outfit that could’ve come straight out of Christian Grey’s red room. Although the ensemble stood out not just for its risqué factors, but for the designers behind the pieces. She wore Chromat and Prabal Gurung for Lane Bryant with Fashion to Figure, all body positive brands that design clothes for curvy women.
McGrady, who recently shot for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, opened up about the importance of feeling sexy — and of clothes that make that possible for curvy women. “I just threw on what I wanted to wear. I feel like a lot of people try to put curvy girls in this category of ‘you can’t wear this. You can only wear this,’” she told Yahoo Style. “I kind of said, ‘You know what? I’m just going to wear what I want. And so I threw it on, and here I am. I feel supersexy in it!”
Supersexy is an understatement. The outfit, consisting of a sheer pencil skirt that covers up a cut-out bustier and garter belt, was more than 50 Shades of Grey — it was like 100 Shades of Black.
As the curviest model ever featured in Sports Illustrated, McGrady has plenty to say about how our culture perceives flaws. “It’s something that’s always been in my heart and something that I’ve been so proud of. I struggled with a lot of insecurity when I was younger. I mean I still do. Of course I’m only human,” she said.
She continued, “I just want women out there to know that you are beautiful in the skin that you’re in. And what people deem flaws are not flaws. Everyone has these things, whether it be stretch marks, cellulite, acne, whatever it is.” Translation: Whatever you’re most insecure about, work hard to embrace it (and maybe you’ll also end up in Sports Illustrated.)
