Gabrielle Union is in full press mode in support of her new memoir, We’re Going to Need More Wine. The Being Mary Jane actress penned an honest story about her life and career, and the ups and downs that led her to where she is now. One of the most powerful excerpts in the book is when the 44-year-old actress recounts being raped when she was 19 and working at a Payless shoe store.
During an interview with Nightline, Union goes into great detail about the scary encounter that changed her. “What happened was graphic and violent and life-changing and altering,” Union said. “The woman in that back room is dead, and I’m the phoenix that rose from the ashes.”
Union, who has been vocal about her past and played a sexual assault victim in Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation, then said she feared for life and tried to kill her assailant.
“It was literally an out-of-body experience,” Union recalled. “That me and the me on the ground getting raped became one, and I grabbed the gun and I did my best to try and and kill him because I really felt I was about to die. So it was either going to be him or me, and it wasn’t going to be me, not on that day.” Check out the video below:
Actress and author @itsgabrielleu opens up about being sexually assaulted when she was 19 years old. "I really felt I was about to die." pic.twitter.com/eHj0dDSXWc
— Nightline (@Nightline) October 17, 2017
