Jane Fonda shared that her mother was sexually abused as a child and told an audience gathered Sunday to raise funds for Santa Monica’s Rape Treatment Center that finally understanding that trauma helped her to understand her mother.
Fonda told activists and philanthropists at the event that she was doing research while writing her memoirs and found the sexual abuse in her mother’s medical records.
According to The Associated Press, Fonda's mother Frances Ford Seymour was 8 years old at the time of the medical entries; she killed herself when Fonda was young.
"The minute that I read that, everything fell into place," Fonda said, according to the AP. "I knew why the promiscuity, the endless plastic surgery, the guilt, the inability to love or be intimate, and I was able to forgive her and forgive myself."
After talking about the impact of sexual violence, Fonda added, “I will support the Rape Treatment Center for the rest of my life."
“I did not know this about my mother until I was in my sixties although I had sensed all my life that something bad must have happened to her when she was little because she was always sick, unable to really love, self-mutilated in the form of excessive plastic surgery, felt evil and worthless, hated her body, was promiscuous and eventually committed suicide when she was forty-two,” Fonda wrote.
Fonda wrote that blog after meeting Gail Arbarbanel, founder of the Rape Treatment Center and president of the Rape Foundation.
In the blog, she talked about the important work being done at the treatment center and how tough it is to understand the challenges faced by women or children who are sexually abused.
In her blog, Fonda quoted Dr. Judith Herman: "'Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.'" Then she added, "I wish my mother could have told and been believed."
At the fundraiser, five people spontaneously gave $100,000 each to support the work of the treatment center, the AP said.
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