In new memoir 'Mean Baby', the 'Hellboy' actress also recalls experiencing multiple rapes during her college spring break trip because she was too drunk to call for help.
- May 12, 2022
AceShowbiz - Selma Blair is not shy in going candid about her shocking past with the world. When promoting her new book "Mean Baby", the "Hellboy" actress opened up about finding comfort in alcohol from very young age, spilling details how it became her "coping mechanism" to survive horrifying childhood.
Speaking about her early years of drinking, the "Legally Blonde" actress admitted to PEOPLE, "I don't know if I would've survived childhood without alcoholism." She added, "That's why it's such a problem for a lot of people. It really is a huge comfort, a huge relief in the beginning. Maybe even the first few years for me because I did start really young with that as a comfort, as my coping mechanism."
In an excerpt from her memoir, Selma also detailed how she first got drunk. "The first time I got drunk it was a revelation. I always liked Passover. As I took small sips of the Manischewitz I was allowed throughout the seder a light flooded through me, filling me up with the warmth of God," the actress wrote, "But the year I was seven, when we basically had Manischewitz on tap and no one was paying attention to my consumption level, I put it together: the feeling was not God but fermentation."
The "Cruel Intentions" actress recalled further, in the book, that after her first sip of alcohol, she was hooked. "I thought 'Well this is a huge disappointment, but since it turns out I can get the warmth of the Lord from a bottle, thank God there's one right here,' " she shared, "I got drunk that night. Very drunk. Eventually, I was put in my sister Katie's bed with her. In the morning, I didn't remember how I'd gotten there."
Still, Selma stressed that during her early years of drinking, she would only consume it to ease her anxiety. "Just quick sips whenever my anxiety would alight. I usually barely even got tipsy. I became an expert alcoholic, adept at hiding my secret," the 49-year-old actress stated in her book.
Drinking aside, "The Sweetest Thing" actress additionally wrote about a traumatizing experience that happened during her college spring break trip. She divulged that she was raped "multiple times" after binge-drinking, but was unable to defend herself. "I don't know if both of them raped me. One of them definitely did," she stated.
"I made myself small and quiet and waited for it to be over. I wish I could say what happened to me that night was an anomaly, but it wasn't," Selma went on adding, "I have been raped, multiple times, because I was too drunk to say the words 'Please. Stop.' Only that one time was violent. I came out of each event quiet and ashamed."
Meanwhile, in the interview with PEOPLE, Selma declared that other than her therapist, she has actually never told a soul about the rape incident. Yet, the "After" actress felt it was important to talk about it in her memoir. "Writing that stopped me dead in my tracks," she told the outlet, stressing that it was a way for her to heal from her trauma.
"My sense of trauma was bigger than I knew. I did not realize that assault was so central in my life. I had so much shame and blame," Selma elaborated. "I'm grateful I felt safe enough to put it on the page. And then can work on it with a therapist and with other writing, and really relieve that burden of shame on myself."
Selma, who has been sober since 2016, dedicated "Mean Baby" to others who went through similar experience. "I wrote the book for my son… and for people trying to find the deepest hole to crawl into until the pain passes," she concluded.
