Joan Collins Opens Up About Being A Victim Of Date Rape At 17 Then Marrying Her Rapist

Joan Collins has made the brave decision to share painful memories of being raped in a new documentary.

The documentary was created by former Miss World winner Linor Abargil, who was sexually assaulted and stabbed just six weeks before the competition.

Brave Miss World was created to raise awareness about sexual violence and give other rape survivors the opportunity to share their stories.

Collins has spoken about the rape previously in her memoir titled The World According To Joan. She shares with readers that she was sexually assaulted by the late actor Maxwell Reed. Collins says Reed drugged her then sexually assaulted her.

“I was raped when I was seventeen years old,” Collins wrote.

At the time of the sexual assault, Collins had just graduated from Rada and had been signed by the Rank Film Studios, reports the Independent.

Collins recalls going on a date with Reed. She says that during the date, Reed told her he needed to take a bath. Before leaving her he made her a rum and coke and left her books to read.

“The books were porn, which I’d never seen before. The next thing I knew I was out flat on the sofa in that living room and he was raping me. And what he had given me was a drug. He had drugged my drink,” Collins, 81, recalls.

“It was what is called in those days a Mickey Finn. Which I think today would be Rohypnol. It felt so horrible. That I… that I’d done this thing,” Collins added.

Collins says that shame and guilt kept her in a relationship. Eventually she agreed to marry Reed. Collins recalls crying on the evening before her wedding but her father told her they could not cancel the wedding because people had already been invited, reports Marie Claire.

“It wasn’t my fault but I didn’t know, I went out with him. And maybe I shouldn’t have gone out with him. He was much older than me, and he was a famous [actor],” she said.

“And anyway the bottom line is that he called me, and I went out with him again. And after I’d been going out with him for a few months, he asked me to marry him. And I thought, ‘Well I better because you know, he took my virginity.’ I really hated him, but I was so filled with guilt, that he had done this thing to me,” Collins said.

They divorced in 1956 after four years of marriage.

“It took a long time to be able to really trust any man,” she said.

Collins married four more times after divorcing Reed. She is currently married to Percy Gibson, who she wed back in 2002.