Amy Schumer Reveals Abusive Relationship + Rape in Startling ‘Oprah’ Interview
I Feel Pretty star Amy Schumer has opened up to Oprah's Super Soul Sundays about how she's come to terms with the fact that she lost her virginity by means of rape, and says she's only just beginning to sort through the abusive relationship that encompassed the horrific act.
As part of the interview, Schumer described the confusing experience of waking up to discover her college boyfriend was having sex with her without consent.
“I, personally, feel like I lost my virginity through rape. I lost my virginity while I was asleep,” she said. “So, in my stand-up, I used to talk about — I called it, ‘gray-area rape,’ which was my way of bringing this up in my stand-up… trying to make people laugh while they learned. When we hear about rape when we’re children, it’s about a guy popping out from a bush and this villain. They don’t say it’s probably going to be a guy who you know very well. It could be your husband, your friend. You think when that happens to you, you say, ‘Okay, well this isn’t someone I want to see rotting in a jail cell but what he did to me was wrong and I didn’t consent.'”
Schumer also said that an ex has been physically abusive, sometimes without realizing he had done any harm. And Schumer, at the time, wasn't equipped to handle the aggression, and said she could only think to try to placate him.
“I got hurt by accident a lot. He didn’t realize how hard he’d grabbed me or shook me or pushed me, and I would fall and hit something then I’d be hurt,” she said. “I can picture being thrown on the hood of a car like it was an hour ago.”
“And running from him, carrying my shoes and running from him, running into backyards trying to get away from him because I was afraid for my life,” she added. “It’s so out of body. You think, ‘I’m not this woman, who is this woman? This can’t be me.’ I’m not that kind of woman, and then you realize there is no kind of woman. It happens to all women.”
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