Teri Hatcher is empowering sexual assault victims to come forward by sharing her own #MeToo story that from decades ago.
The Desperate Housewives star shared an open letter addressed to President Donald Trump on Wednesday, remembering the moment she was sexually abused in a car.
“Here’s what I remember: His erect penis, that he was stroking as he sat behind the wheel of the car. ‘Do you want to touch it?’ he asked. I said, ‘No.’ He took my hand to touch it anyway. It was pink. There were tissues. I didn’t know what they were for, but then I did,” Hatcher wrote on Instagram.
“I was face down on the seat looking at the floor as he violated me. He said, ‘Do you like how this feels?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Someday you will,’ ” she continued.
Recalling the moment, Hatcher admitted that she did not remember, “the address of where it happened. How I got there. How I got home. What day or month it was. If anyone was drinking beer.”
“Sadly, myself and then decades later, teenager Sarah Van Cleemput, were abused by the same man. She committed suicide,” Hatcher wrote. “I battled demons.”
Her detailed account comes a week after Christine Blasey Ford — a 51-year-old research psychologist and professor at Palo Alto University — testified at a Senate hearing about her claims that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a high school party in the 1980s. During the hearing, Ford couldn’t recall some details about the alleged sexual assault, including how she got home.
Kavanaugh, 53, has adamantly denied the allegation, and the FBI wrapped up an investigation on the claims Thursday. The FBI report on sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh was delivered to the Senate Judiciary Committee at 2:30 a.m. on Thursday, CNN reported. Senators will take a procedural vote Friday and could hold the final vote Saturday.
On Tuesday night, Donald Trump sarcastically mimicked Ford’s testimony at a rally in Mississippi.
Now, Hatcher, 53, is calling out the president for allegedly mocking any victim’s account of sexual assault.
“Mr. President, I am a survivor, who stands available to help you understand the way the memories of a trauma like that work. It might be hard for you to understand. I can readily explain in detail that ‘I don’t remember’ is often the most honest response surrounding questions of an assault,” Hatcher continued in her post.
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“It does NOT mean it didn’t happen. Please do not add ‘Mocked by President’ to the injury list of a sexual survivor,” she wrote. “It’s just plain wrong.”
In 2006, Hatcher revealed that she was sexually abused by an uncle — something that had haunted the actress for 35 years.
In an interview with Vanity Fair magazine, Hatcher described how she carried her horrible secret with her until the 2002 suicide of a 14-year-old girl who also was molested by the uncle, Richard Hayes Stone, Reuters reported.
Afraid that her uncle might avoid prosecution, Hatcher recounted how she found out about the case in newspaper stories and was “blown over by this girl’s pain,” the actress said. “I thought, ‘Boy, that’s really close to being me.’ ”
Santa Clara, California, Deputy District Attorney Chuck Gillingham said it was Hatcher’s testimony that eventually led to a guilty plea from Stone and a 14-year prison sentence.
“Without Teri, this case would have been dismissed,” Gillingham told Vanity Fair.
Hatcher said that she kept the abuse, which took place when she was 5, a secret from everyone, including her parents. She last saw Stone when she was 8 or 9 years old.
“That’s a victim thing; you ask yourself, ‘Am I just crazy? Did I make all this up?’ Somehow it might be easier to accept that you’re crazy and made it all up than to admit that it happened, and how awful it was,” she said.
