In an interview and emotional letter with Rolling Stone, Westworld actress Evan Rachel Wood has opened up about her sexuality and the importance of standing up against sexual assault.
The 29-year-old said, who has been raped twice, said she felt compelled to share details on her experience the day after Trump won the Presidential election. This email revelation was separate to the magazine interview, in which Wood was more circumspect in responding about her experiences.
"I've been raped. By a significant other while we were together. And on a separate occasion, by the owner of a bar. I don't believe we live in a time where people can stay silent any longer. Not given the state our world is in with its blatant bigotry and sexism," she wrote in the email.
But the actress who plays the android Dolores in the Westworld series, a character who is subjected to violence from the beginning episodes, says that filming the scenes allowed her to "make peace" with the similar trauma she experienced.
"I mean, your demons never fully leave," Wood said. "But when you're using them to create something else, it almost gives them a purpose and feels like none of it was in vain. I think that's how I make peace with it."
After the interview was published online, Wood decided to release her follow-up Rolling Stone email in its entirety via Twitter, discussing her experience and the reason women should not remain silent in a world where "blatant bigotry and sexism" exists.
Well, since everything is out in the open now, figured I would share the confession letter I wrote to @RollingStone in its entirety. #NotOk pic.twitter.com/0FSP1gsE36— #EvanRachelWould (@evanrachelwood) November 28, 2016
"I started questioning my reasons for staying vague about my experiences as a girl growing up in America," she wrote.
"I think, like a lot of women, I had the urge to not make it a sob story, to not make it about me."
The actress, who came out as bisexual in 2011 and now identifies as "gender-fluid", admitted being vulnerable to "physical, psychological and sexual" abuse because of her sexuality.
She also discussed with Rolling Stone, a video she released two days before the Pulse nightclub massacre, saying "some weird premonitions" and an aching in her heart was leading her to share her story with the LGBT community.
"Nearly half of bisexual women have considered or attempted suicide, they have higher rates of mood disorders such as depression and anxiety, one in two bisexual women has experienced severe violence by an intimate partner," she said in the 19-minute video.
These were all things, she said she has experienced since realising her attraction to women at aged 5, labelling her suicide attempt at aged 22: "weirdly, the best-worst thing that ever happened to me because it did not work."
Wood recently defended Westworld's scenes depicting violence towards women, arguing it is very much "a commentary and a look at our humanity and why we find these things entertaining and why this is an epidemic, and flipping it on its head."
She said to The Hollywood Reporter, "The roles for the women on this show are going to be very revolutionary. It's very gender-neutral. I would ask, as somebody who is an advocate against any kind of abuse or violence and is outspoken about it, to give it a chance and wait to see where it's going. I think it will surprise people."
When asked by Rolling Stone about the show's depiction of abuse, Wood labelled it "an initial knee-jerk reaction."
"I was affected by things being written off as locker-room talk – I had a very, very visceral reaction to it. But the show is definitely a commentary on that."
