Jane Goldman has revealed she was sexually assaulted by a rock musician at the age of 16.
The 47-year-old screenwriter – who is married to TV host Jonathan Ross, 56 – has revealed that she was attacked when she was just a teenager but did not realise how terrible the incident was until her daughters expressed their outrage.
Speaking to The Guardian, she said: "Women who grew up in my generation were conditioned to look back at things that were bad and say: ‘Well, it was a different time.’ Often, when my daughters expressed outrage about things that had happened in the past, I’d go: ‘Well, it was a different time, not that it’s OK, it’s terrible.’ But seeing things through the eyes of their generation, it’s like, no, you know what? A lot of the reason why things continued being not great for women were because we were all conditioned to say: ‘Ah well, s**t happens.’
"I had anecdotes that I thought were funny, about stuff that had happened to me, but my daughters responded to them by saying: ‘What, you mean you were sexually assaulted?’ I’d be like, wow, I had always told that as a funny story about the time some guy stuck his hand down my dress while I was waiting for a taxi. Mainly, because the guy in question was out of [a well-known band]. I thought: ‘No, hang on; I should be as outraged as [my daughters] are.’"
And Jane explained that she believes she was wrong to tell the story humorously in the past.
She said: "Because actually, in a society where a 16-year-old getting groped by a dude, while she’s waiting for a taxi, is considered a funny anecdote, I’m contributing by telling it like that. I suddenly realised, actually I do have a part to play."
Jane and Jonathan have daughters Honey, 20, and Betty, 26, and son Harvey, 23, together.
Jane Goldman sexually assaulted at 16
