Nikki Bella has alleged she was raped twice as a teenager.
Nikki Bella
The 36-year-old retired professional wrestler has opened up about her experience with sexual abuse, as she claims she was raped twice in two years, with the first alleged attacker taking her virginity "without consent" when she was 15.
In her new memoir, 'Incomparable', she writes: "My virginity was stolen from me, without my consent. I was raped, by a guy I thought was a friend, while I was passed out at a party. I'd had too many beers, and maybe some shots of hard alcohol, and I only woke up because my stomach hurt - I came to, and this guy was both on top of me and inside of me. I pushed him off and ran out of the room - he followed me down the hall and asked me if this meant we were now boyfriend/ girlfriend ... I had never even seen a penis, yet I was no longer a virgin."
Nikki alleges the second incident happened the following year when she was 16, as she claims an older man forced himself on her after drugging her.
And the 'Total Bellas' star says she was left feeling "shame" after the events.
She wrote in the book: "There is the horrible offence in the moment, and then the shame and blame that follow and feel almost worse than the original pain. When something like this happens to you, you understand the blame-the-victim mentality, how easy it is to feel shame rather than anger, how easy it is to feel like you could have stopped it yourself."
Nikki - who co-wrote the memoir alongside her twin sister Brie Bella - also gave an interview to People magazine alongside the release of 'Incomparable' on Tuesday (05.05.20), where she admitted to "blaming herself" for the alleged rapes.
She said: "When that happened to me, I immediately just felt so ashamed and blamed myself, and that's what made me want to keep it such a secret. And keeping that a secret and blaming myself, I started to lose my confidence. I started to disrespect myself. And then the relationships I got into at a young age, I let other people disrespect me and felt like, that's okay, this is what I deserved.
"I was like that for a really long time. I would go to therapy on and off. Looking at it now I'm like, 'Oh Nicole, I wish you just would've let go at a young age. So much would have changed for you.' And I think that's what made me really want to tell these stories finally."
Now, Nikki is keen to share her truth in the hopes of helping others who have been through similar situations.
She told People magazine: "When the #MeToo movement happened, I was just like, 'Oh my gosh.' I feel like, if I'm having these younger women look up to me, maybe I can help them and have them not hold onto this as long as I did.
"It wasn't until I was 28 and in a relationship where someone started to teach me how to respect myself. That's how long I held on to things and felt I had no boundaries. And I'd always look at Brie like, 'Oh, she has boundaries, she treats herself with such respect. How do I not have this?' And I knew why. But I held onto it for so long. When I look back at just decisions I made based off of it, I wish I could have heard my words now as a 36-year-old woman then, and be like, 'You're going to be okay.'"
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