Teri Hatcher took to Instagram on Thursday to write an open letter to Donald Trump, in which she detailed the sexual assault she endured as a five-year-old. The actress shared the post as a response to the president mocking Christine Blasey Ford’s Senate testimony against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, whom Ford has accused of sexual assault.
“Mr. President @realDonaldTrump, I’d like to take this opportunity to weigh in on the process of recalling a sexual assault. #metoo #believe #survivor,” Hatcher wrote.
Though he previously labeled Ford a “credible witness,” Trump made fun of her emotional account during a Mississippi campaign rally on Tuesday night. “What neighborhood was it in? ‘I don’t know.’ Where’s the house? ‘I don’t know,'” he told the crowd. “Upstairs, downstairs? ‘I don’t know.’ ‘But I had one beer, that’s the only thing I remember.'”
Hatcher, who first revealed in 2006 that she was sexually abused by an uncle at age five, went on to explain what she does and doesn’t remember from the horrifying experience.
“Here’s what I remember: His erect penis, that he was stroking as he sat behind the wheel of the car,” she wrote. “‘Do you want to touch it?’ he asked. I said, ‘No.’ He took my hand to touch it anyway. It was pink. There were tissues. I didn’t know what they were for, but then I did.”
The former Desperate Housewives star added: “I was face down on the seat looking at the floor as he violated me. He said, ‘Do you like how this feels?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Someday you will.'”
Hatcher also said that, like Ford, she doesn’t remember some details from the incident — where it happened, how she got there, how she got home, what day or month it occurred or if anyone was drinking beer.
“Sadly, myself and then decades later, teenager Sarah Van Cleemput, were abused by the same man,” she continued. “She committed suicide. I battled demons.”
Hatcher concluded her letter by directly addressing Trump. “I am a survivor, who stands available to help you understand the way the memories of a trauma like that work. It might be hard for you to understand,” she wrote. “I can readily explain in detail that ‘I don’t remember’ is often the most honest response surrounding questions of an assault. It does NOT mean it didn’t happen. Please do not add ‘Mocked by President’ to the injury list of a sexual survivor. It’s just plain wrong.”
Hatcher isn’t the only actress who has been inspired to share her story of assault following Ford’s testimony. Last week, Busy Philipps revealed on Instagram that she was raped at 14 years old, a secret she had kept for 25 years. “Today is the day we are silent no more. All of us. I’m scared to post this,” she wrote in part. “I can’t imagine what Dr. Ford is feeling right now.” Ellen DeGeneres and Connie Chung have also revealed their own experiences of being sexually assaulted.
Ford has accused Trump’s high-court nominee of sexually assaulting her during a summer-house gathering in 1982 in Montgomery County, Maryland, when she would have been 15. Ford said that during the incident, Kavanaugh held her down on a bed, tried to remove her clothes and placed his hand over her mouth to silence her cries of protest. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.
In her opening statement last Thursday, Ford told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school.”
Since Ford went public with her allegations against Kavanaugh, two other women — Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick — have also come out to share stories of the politician’s alleged behavior. Kavanaugh has also denied their accusations.
