Mena Suvari

"American Pie" star and "The Great Peace" author Mena Suvari opened up about her sexual abuse with a former ex and how she survived a drug addiction.

The circumstances had been created for me, and I was just swallowed up by it," she told the outlet. She said she "felt trapped," and took drugs to numb the pain. 'I was not loved.

American actress Mena Suvari has opened up about experiencing s*xual abuse as a teen and how her ex-boyfriend used to "manipulate" her into having ...

In 2021, while talking to People Magazine, the actress revealed that she was r*ped by her brother's friend at the age of 12. I was not given the choice or the permission to do it, and that’s what was so destructive for me. However, their marriage was short-lived and they got divorced in 2005. He used me, had fun with me and then disposed of me. The circumstances had been created for me, and I was just swallowed up by it." And that, compiled with already not feeling seen and heard, established a concept that I would have of myself.

In a new interview, Suvari detailed the sexual and emotional abuse she endured during her career.

“That’s a big part of survival – I had to learn how a lot of things served me then, and they don’t have to serve me anymore.” Though she has enlisted in professional therapy, she admits that it’s still a “daily battle” to get through it. ‘Oh, you want me to be sexually attractive?’ Done. I felt unavailable in a million other ways, but I knew how to play that card.” She would leave the set, where she felt adored, to her home, where she was in “the worst relationship of my life, where I was being extremely abused. She recalls of filming American Beauty: “I identified with Angela. I knew how to play that role, because I was so schooled in it. When she was told at 12 during a modeling shoot that she looked 18, she feels that it opened the door for men to prey on her. With her son only having been a few months old at the time of the book’s release, Suvari admitted that she was in the throes of postnatal depression during her book tour. She finally spoke about it in her book, The Great Peace, which discusses at length the traumas she has endured: from being raped at 12 years old by her brother’s friend, to predatory relationships once she was famous, to the drug addiction that she relied on as a coping mechanism.

Mena Suvari was 17 when she fell into an abusive relationship that led to her requiring medical care, but the abuse had started well before.

She eventually escaped the relationship, and went on to have a successful entertainment career. After he raped her, he told people at school that Suvari was a “whore,” and in her shame, Suvari denied all of it ever happened, she continued in the interview. They also helped her identify with her character, Angela, in the critically acclaimed film “American Beauty,” which tells the story of Kevin Spacey’s character developing an obsession with his daughter’s friend, portrayed by Suvari, she told the outlet. The circumstances had been created for me, and I was just swallowed up by it,” Suvari said, according to the outlet. The lighting engineer reportedly asked Suvari to pick up other women so they could have threesomes, some of whom she met on set, she continued. Suvari was 12 when one of her brother’s friends raped her several times, she told The Guardian in an interview published July 27.

The 'American Beauty' actress, 43, added she was also treated like an adult at the session – which came the same year she was raped. She told The Guardian: " ...

She told of her rape ordeal in her memoir ‘The Great Peace’, adding to The Guardian on Wednesday: “That sucked the life out of me. I think that was just excessive confirmation that no one was going to save me, no one was going to do anything for me.” She added she was told if she looked “sexy” at her first shoot it would make it better.