Tatum O’Neal says she was sexually assaulted as a child ‘more than once': ‘I remember everything!!’
Actress Tatum O’Neal is joining a chorus of women who have come forward with stories of sexual assault since Christine Blasey Ford accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of attempted assault at a high school party in the early 1980s.
In a lengthy Instagram post on Thursday, the Oscar winner admonished President Donald Trump for mocking Ford during a political rally earlier this week. “I am a woman and i have been sexually assaulted more than once !! ” O’Neal wrote. “It was not my fault when I was 5, 6 12 , 13 , 15.”
O’Neal — who won an Oscar at age 10 playing opposite her dad, Ryan O’Neal in the 1974 drama “Paper Moon” — said all the assaults were committed by “older men” whom she thought “were safe.”
Although she never mentions Blasey Ford by name, she said that she too remembers “everything” about her experiences. “It’s taken in me almost 55 years to know how to advocate for myself,” she wrote. “But I learn fast and here I go!!”
“To see the president of U.S. mock a woman, let alone a sexual assault victim. We’ve sunk to a depth of depravity that I never thought the president of the United States could ever sink to you,” O’Neal wrote. “Whether it was 35 years ago to a 75-year-old man at 15 I remember everything !!”
At a rally in Mississippi Tuesday, Trump mocked Ford for not recalling key details in her account of a party of high schoolers in the early 1980s.
“[T]here are people will say, I had it coming or it was probably my fault. Or I deserved it -that’s what America has come to you now,” O’Neal said.
“Let’s lead with love and kindness and empathy Towards one another,” she concluded. “But we, victims the victim of sexual assault or violence, must NOT put down our armor.It’s time to fight for one another and each other this dark time ! [sic] America. We can do better we will be better!!”
The post includes a picture of O’Neal from “Paper Moon” smoking a cigarette.
A post shared by Tatum O'neal (@tatum__oneal) on Oct 4, 2018 at 1:57am PDT
O’Neal, who has spoken about her experience with sexual abuse in the past, is the daughter of actress Joanna Moore, best known as the sheriff’s girlfriend on the “Andy Griffith Show,” and actor Ryan O’Neal.
In 1974, at the age of 10, she became the youngest person to win an Oscar for her role in “Paper Moon,” a movie she co-starred with her father. In her 2004 memoir, “A Paper Life,” O’Neal described a childhood full of neglect and abuse, both physical and sexual.
“When parents are off getting drunk or getting high or taking pills in another room, and leaving little children with, you know, people who don’t watch their kids, this is what happens,” she told NBC’s “Dateline” in 2004. “I thank God everyday that it is so behind me.”