Oscar-winner Dame Helen Mirren reveals date rape
Monday, 01 Sep 2008 09:01
Dame Helen Mirren reveals she was date-raped while a student
Dame Helen Mirren was date-raped while she was a student, she has revealed.
The Oscar-winning actress told GQ magazine that she was locked in a room and forced to have sex "a couple of times" during her college days but did not report the incidents because "you couldn't do that in those days".
The 63-year-old also opined that not all cases of the kind in which she was involved should go to court.
"It's such a tricky area, isn't it? Especially if there is no violence," she continued. "I mean, look at Mike Tyson. I don't think he was a rapist.
"I guess it is one of the many subtle parts of the men/women relationship that has to be negotiated and worked out between them."
Dame Helen, an Oscar-winner for her portrayal of the Queen, said she was "pretty naive" when she moved to London as a teenager.
"And I found guys were horrible, mean, rude, insulting, and so without feeling," she added.
"And I was looking for love and for someone who just liked me, made me laugh and was nice to me. And instead I just met all these creeps."
She went on: "I was [date-raped], yes. A couple of times.
"Not with excessive violence, or being hit, but rather being locked in a room and made to have sex against my will."
The actress also explained that she "loved coke" [cocaine] during her younger days but stopped after learning of the drug-dealing success of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie.
"Until that moment I had never grasped the full horrifying structure of what brings coke to our parties in Britain," she told GQ interviewer Piers Morgan.