America Ferrera recalls ‘traumatic’ backlash after speaking up during MeToo movement

In a recent interview, Barbie star America Ferrera spoke about female solidarity and her involvement in the Me Too movement. 

The actress delved into the aftermath of publicly sharing her sexual assault experience in 2017, which caused her significant trauma.

During the interview with Harper's Bazaar, Ferrera talked about how her attempt to join a movement of women supporting one another resulted in a "super traumatic" response from individuals in her inner circle.

In the upcoming Barbie movie, the actress shares the screen with co-stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. However, back in 2017, she joined the Me Too movement by sharing her distressing experience of being molested at the age of nine.

Despite this, the 39-year-old actress recently disclosed that she was not ready for the negative response she received and was ultimately left feeling "really ashamed" for raising her voice.

Speaking to Harper's Bazaar UK, she shared: “I was so moved by the women who were speaking out, realizing how much courage they had. [Telling my story] felt like an act of solidarity.”

However hard it was for the actress to muster the courage to speak out, the people close to her were not happy and thought she had made a mistake.

“They were not happy. It was super traumatic. The hardest part was experiencing just how threatening it was to people. And it was so validating of why I had never said anything about it since I was nine years old.”