Jameela Jamil was date raped when she was 22.
The ‘Good Place’ actress admitted she didn’t feel comfortable telling the unnamed man to "stop" his assault on her because she’d gone home with him, even though she didn’t know him "well enough", but the experience taught her a lot about issues around consent.
In an interview with The Times, she said: "I believe that was due to going home with someone I didn’t know well enough.
"I couldn’t predict what their behaviour was going to be like behind closed doors and I didn’t have the words, or feel I had the right, to stop what was happening.
"That shed a lot of light on the subject of consent and the dangers of going home with people when you don’t know about their past, their mental health, history or their triggers."
The 32-year-old presenter admitted her experience – and "freeze reaction" being taken as consent – has made her more careful about the situations she puts herself in.
She said: "After I was attacked I took comfort in knowing that I would never again do that, knowing that I had made some errors of judgment.
"It didn’t make me feel like I was victim shaming myself, I felt empowered that there were things I could do to make that much less likely to happen again.
"I’ve been more careful since, I’ve really got to know the people I put myself behind closed doors with, and that’s meant I’ve felt very safe and had lots of very nice experiences."
Jameela wants her upcoming Radio 4 programme, ‘The New Age of Consent’, to encourage young people to listen to their instincts, and be careful not to put themselves in dangerous situations.
She said: "Be very careful, learn to follow their instincts and not to drink or take drugs to the point where they can’t hear those instincts anymore."
Jameela Jamil was sexually assaulted when she was 22
