Rachel Zegler: Having to answer for Ansel's allegations were a "Gut Punch"
Rachel Zegler Says Having to Answer for Ansel Elgort's Alleged Sexual Assault 'Was a Gut Punch' https://t.co/zVE4J339Wg
- Variety (@Variety) April 19, 2022
-In her upcoming Elle magazine cover, Rachel talks about her feelings regarding being questioned about Ansel Egort's sexual assault allegation.
-The interviewer highlights that the female cast of WSS were frequently asked their thoughts about the allegations to which during that time Rachel questioned as to why they were being asked when the person in question was right there and was not asked.
that part pic.twitter.com/7nWGGGajSX
- ahmad (@thisisnotahmad) April 19, 2022
“It was a real gut punch, honestly,” Zegler said of always being asked to answer for Elgort’s alleged behavior. “I reverted back to this brain space I was in [back in] June of 2020, when the accusation surfaced. We were in the middle of the first wave of lockdown, and there was nothing to do but doom-scroll. Those days were some of the worst mental health days I’ve ever had. I was sitting there having just turned 19, on the precipice of what was promised to be the biggest moment in my life, and was being held accountable [by the public] for accusations that not only had nothing to do with me but were made about a situation that was said to have occurred [five] years prior to when I had met and worked with this person. With no thought to the fact that I was also 17 when I met this person, 17 when I worked with them, 17 and 18 when I had to do love scenes.”
“It is so wildly disappointing at every turn, no matter how you slice it,” Zegler said. “No matter how many times I’ve tried to justify people’s concern when it comes to me in my brain, but then realizing that it comes from a place of me having to answer for that, and not them actually caring about whether or not I was okay, was really hurtful. And also paying no mind when it came to the conversation between myself and these other incredible women in my cast, without any thought process to our experiences as women in the industry who constantly find ourselves in close encounters with men in power, and a very iconic woman in Hollywood [Rita Moreno] who has spoken about her experience with sexual assault.”
She concluded by wanting to move past this and acknowledging that while this traumatizing for her, she can't imagine what the actual victim must be going through:
“In the grand scheme of things with this woman who has come forward with these allegations, I cannot imagine what she had to go through. If I’m sitting here thinking that those days were traumatizing for me, I don’t pretend to know. I could never know. I really don’t have anything to do with this conversation, and I’m looking forward to moving past it.
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