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Alyssa Milano Describes Surviving Sexual Assault As A Teen In #WhyIDidntReport Essay

“It took me years after my assault to voice the experience to my closest friends,” the 'Charmed' actress wrote.

Actress Alyssa Milano defended Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's accuser and opened up about her own experience with sexual assault as a teenager in a powerful essay published Sunday on Vox.

The "Charmed" actress railed against President Donald Trump's tweets questioning why Christine Blasey Ford didn't immediately report Kavanaugh to police after he allegedly sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s.

"It took me years after my assault to voice the experience to my closest friends," Milano wrote. "It took me three decades to tell my parents that the assault had even happened. I never filed a police report. I never told officials. I never tried to find justice for my pain because justice was never an option."

She continued: "For me, speaking up meant reliving one of the worst moments of my life. It meant recognizing my attacker's existence when I wanted nothing more than to forget that he was allowed to walk on this Earth at all. This is what every survivor goes through."

Blasey has alleged Kavanaugh pinned her down and groped her at a small party in suburban Maryland when they were both high school students. Blasey, now a 51-year-old research psychologist in Northern California, has received death threats for coming forward in recent weeks, according to her legal team.

"Telling our stories means being vulnerable to public attacks and ridicule when our only 'crime' was to be assaulted in the first place," Milano wrote.

Milano's essay expanded on a series of tweets she posted over the weekend as sexual assault survivors used the hashtag #WhyIDidntReport to share their heart-wrenching stories of abuse.

In her Vox essay, Milano encouraged all sexual assault survivors to "honor your own experiences and your own voice, in your own time."

"Despite the alleged actions of Brett Kavanaugh, despite the words of President Trump, and despite the silence from so many of our lawmakers, you are valuable. You are human. You are important," she wrote. "And no one — not a Supreme Court nominee and not a President — can take that away from you."

"So let me be as clear as possible: I believe Christine Blasey Ford and I demand that our Senators vote to reject Brett Kavanaugh as the next Justice on the Supreme Court," she added.

Blasey has agreed to testify about her experience before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. The panel has delayed its vote on whether to advance Kavanaugh's confirmation to the full Senate in order to hear Blasey's testimony.

Kavanaugh, a 53-year-old federal appeals court judge, has denied Blasey's allegation and will also testify before the committee on Thursday.

Read Milano's entire essay on Vox.

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