Rosario Dawson is no longer a prisoner of her past trauma. In an eye-opening interview with the podcast, Morado Lens, Dawson revealed that she was “raped and molested as a child.”
The 38-year-old actress and activist was discussing sexual harassment, when she shared how enduring childhood sexual abuse shaped her expectations for misconduct in the workplace.
“I was raped and molested as a child, so for me, the world was like that since I was a child,” she shared with hosts Cindy Rodriguez and Nathalie Farfan, last week. “So when I saw it in the workplace, it wasn’t foreign to me. It was like, well, that even happens within [families]. It happens with people that are supposed to take care of you when you’re a child.”
Elsewhere in her chat with Rodriguez and Farfan, Dawson shared a new lease on life, one that requires her to be less “uptight” and anxious about things that she can’t control. The loss of her grandmother, and the recent death of her 26-year-old cousin,Vaneza Ines Vasquez, inspired the change.
“I think what it really did was give me back my gratitude,” she explained. “I had lost a sense of gratitude because of my grandmother dying. I think I took it so personally and it hurt me so much. She was my favorite person on the planet and she was gone, and I felt really lost.
“I started in these past couple of months kind of really reflecting on what that is and how unhealthy that is..because regardless of if I had died at 26 [like Vasquez] it was a good life,” continued Dawson, who discovered her cousin dead in her home last May. “Whenever my moment comes I want to know I lived a good life. I don’t want to just be marinating in the upset because I have a lot of trauma and sadness to dwell on if I want to, but there’s so much to be grateful for and I don’t want to waste my time not being dedicated to that.”
Listen to the full interview below (scroll to the 22:00 minute mark to here her discuss sexual abuse, and harassment).