A colleague asked me to provide a list of famous and high profile people who are survivors of sexual abuse. The idea is to help remove the toxic shame that a group of Australian Indigenous young women are living with because of what a sexual perpetrator had done to them. By providing newsworthy people as examples, my colleague aims to lessen the isolation and empower her young clients to move on with their lives.

My list contained only a handful of several high profile women and no men:

Oprah Winfrey (the Queen herself).

Maya Angelou (poet extraordinaire).

Kelli McGillis (Top Gun, Witness).

Terry Hatcher (Desperate Housewives).

Debra Byrne (Australian Singer, Young Talent Time).

A Google search did little to assist. Do you know of anyone else? The secrecy and shame of sexual assault needs to be broken. Children are growing up thinking there is something wrong with them. There is no shame in being a survivor. There is, however, shame in being a sexual predator. The more we talk and share, the greater the light will shine on the amazing successes of people affected by sexual abuse and the greater the shadow cast on those who dare to use sex as a tactic of power and control.

If you know of any high profile men or women who have lived with rape or sexual abuse, please leave their name, and a link, so I can pass it to my colleague.