Lady Gaga's Oscar performance was so powerful more and more sexual abuse victims are coming out and revealing their experiences. The latest one is "Bachelor in Paradise" star Jade Rope.
Roper wrote a lengthy post on her blog Burn Bright Love, to reveal that she was raped around 12 years ago. She said she is only doing it now because she was inspired by Lady Gaga's Oscar performance.
"As I am writing this, my heart is beating fast, hard against my chest, almost irregularly. I've only shared my story with but a few, not even my family knows. But when I saw GaGa fill the whole room with emotion as she sang with conviction and urgency, as I saw survivors of sexual assault bravely stand up there showing the world that what happened to them does matter, tears streamed down my face. Finally the message of "Do not tell me to act strong, do not tell me it will get better, do not pacify me. Until it happens to you, do not tell me how to feel or how to cope. And most importantly, do not try to make me feel insignificant. I am not invisible." All things I thought I had to do. I have always had a fear of being a burden to people, of being too much," she wrote.
She said that high school can be as dangerous a time for girls to get raped. According to the former reality star, she was raped before she turned 17. The perpetrators were guys she actually thought were her friends. She also revealed that she lost her virginity in that tragic way.
"I'm not going to go into detail, but I remember it getting late and I needed to be home for my curfew. I remember one guy holding me down while another got on top of me. I remember them driving me home and my parents were gone, driving around town looking for me. When my parents got home, my dad said he found me in my room on the floor in my underwear, mumbling to him I wasn't innocent anymore. I was a virgin," she wrote.
She tried to implicate the guys by asking them what happened but they denied it. She said she ultimately became a shell of her former self - she became full of anger, shame, and guilt. She even thought she was the one that should be blamed for what happened.
"I convinced myself I must have deserved it. That this bad thing happened to me because of something I had done. That I wasn't worth being loved. That I wasn't worth having sex for the first time with someone who cared about me. All the hurt and the anger I had towards the boys that assaulted me, I took out on myself. I destroyed myself with harmful words and internalized all my emotions. I became depressed, anxious, and self loathing. I contemplated hurting myself several times. I learned to bury everything so I could try and move on," she added.
After her long journey to recovery and healing, she said she is still far from being completely okay. However, she is not afraid to disclose what happened to her anymore. She asks other victims to not feel afraid as well and to remember that they matter.
Lady Gaga, who revealed back in 2014 that she was also raped, really performed her heart and soul out at the Academy Awards. She performed "Til It Happens to You," the Oscar-nominated song that she co-wrote with Diane Warren for the CNN documentary "The Hunting Ground." The documentary centered on rape and assault cases on college campuses.
While performing, survivors of assault joined her onstage, making the performance even more powerful.
Interestingly, the singer later revealed that it is only through this performance that her grandmother and aunt finally knew she was raped. "My grandmother (in the middle) and my Aunt Sheri (on the right) both called me the day after the Oscars because I never told them I was a survivor," Gaga wrote as a caption to a family photo she posted on Instagram on Tuesday.
