In the July issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, 90210 and Dallas actress AnnaLynne McCord released details of her past sexual assault in a personal essay.
Discussing a scene she filmed where her 90210 character was raped by a someone she knew, AnnaLynne wrote in Cosmopolitan, "I broke down, sobbing uncontrollably. My castmates thought I had done a great job playing the part. They had no idea that I had actually been sexually assaulted by someone I knew in real life.”
Though the sexual assault happened when McCord was 18 and new to Los Angeles, McCord has only recently been able to open up about the attack that pushed her to the “brink of suicide,” reports ABC News.
Finally, with some professional help, McCord wrote that she “started facing [her] past” by reading psychology and philosophy books, and by using her experience to motivate herself into helping others. She regularly works with abuse victims in Cambodia and is now able to share “profound intimacy” with boyfriend, Prison Break actor Dominic Purcell.