Selling Sunset’s Mary Fitzgerald Bonnet revealed she is still traumatized from the sexual assault that she suffered a decade ago.
The reality TV star, 44, shared her heart-wrenching story in her new memoir, Selling Sunshine.
In her autobiography’s sixth chapter, called Rock Bottom, she detailed the attack, which occurred 10 years ago, over Memorial Day weekend after accepting an invite from a friend of her friend Amanza Smith, long before they became co-workers at the Oppenheim Group.
A man she calls Joe invited her to his apartment in Los Angeles, where another friend she knew better was going to join them and they they’d all go meet up with a larger group of friends.
But when she arrived at Joe’s, it was only the two of them and he gave her a glass with ‘bright blue liquid’ in it, claiming it was a vodka cocktail which caused her to pass out rapidly.
Selling Sunset ‘s Mary Fitzgerald Bonnet reveals the details of her sexual assault and teenage pregnancy in her new memoir
‘When I woke up, I was on Joe’s bed, with my arms pinned against his mattress, and my pants around my ankles,’ she wrote ‘He was on top of me and inside of me.’
Mary said she ran out of the apartment ‘bawling and shaking’ and went into ‘total survival mode.’
After recalling the assault, she writes about how she dealt with it and learned to if not totally move past it, at least deal with the repercussions it caused in her life.
‘The repercussions of that night still haunt me,’ she wrote. ‘I never go to people’s houses that I don’t know. I won’t be alone with any man that I haven’t been friends with for at least five years or who’s 100 percent gay, so I know I’m safe.’
After the assault, her friends, like Amanza, who was dating Taye Diggs at the time, helped her.
‘I ended up leaving and going to New York with both of them right afterwards,’ she told People.
‘They just knew I needed to get out of there and just have new surroundings and just kind of feel like I was safe.’
Jason Oppenheim, whom she had already dated at that point, was also a big part of her recovery.
Eventually, she told her husband Romain Bonnet, 29, about the assault as well, saying he was ‘shocked.’ ‘He’s like, “Oh baby, I’m sorry you went through that,”‘ she recalled. ‘I mean, well, any good husband would. He’s just been very supportive’
‘When I told him, he was just such a good friend and so comforting and protective,’ she said.
Eventually, she told her husband Romain Bonnet, 29, about the assault as well, saying he was ‘shocked.’
‘He’s like, “Oh baby, I’m sorry you went through that,”‘ she recalled. ‘I mean, well, any good husband would. He’s just been very supportive.’
She continued, ‘Then when I’ve had issues, because with sex, I just subconsciously and involuntarily kind of jump and stuff if I’m touched and I am not expecting it, he’s been very supportive and in that way where he tries not to take it personally and understands it’s just a trigger.’
‘I still am affected by it,’ Bonnet admitted. ‘It’s something that will probably never 100 percent go away.’
‘The hardest part was that I blocked a lot of it out [for] survival, so I had to go back, actually relive it, talk about it and try to remember how I felt,’ she explained.
Ultimately, Mary hopes that by laying bare the difficulties she’s gone through she will convey to others that ‘there is a light at the end of the tunnel.’
The reality TV star, 44, hopes that by laying bare the difficulties she’s gone through she will convey to others that ‘There is a light at the end of the tunnel.’ Seen here in 2023
‘There were so many days where I would just cry and say, “Why does it have to be this hard?” But I just wouldn’t give up,’ she told Us Weekly, adding, ‘I wanted to give other people hope.’
In the book, Mary also writes about her recent fertility struggles after suffering a miscarriage last year, saying that she wants ‘the bad that happened to me to help other people.’
And while she got very candid in her memoir, there were some things she left out.
‘There were a couple of things I left out that really impacted me,’ because she didn’t want to ‘hurt or embarrass anybody I love’ – particularly her son Austin, 27.
Mary got pregnant at 15 and writes about how she was shunned by people in the Indiana town she grew up in.
‘Things happen for a reason,’ she said.
‘Every place I went, I was a baby with a baby, and I was judged. It was really hurtful [but] because of that, I’m able to deal with the criticism we get on the show. I didn’t know at the time that that was setting me up and thickening my skin.’
As Selling Sunset fans know, Mary and Romain have been trying to have a baby and have dealt with a miscarriage and several rounds of IVF along the way.
Selling Sunshine: Surviving Teenage Motherhood, Thriving in Luxury Real Estate, and Finally Finding My Voice, hits bookstore shelves on September 24; seen with her son
‘There were so many days where I would just cry and say, ‘Why does it have to be this hard?’ But I just wouldn’t give up,’ she told Us Weekly, adding, ‘ I wanted to give other people hope. Pictured here with husband Romain Bonnet in 2022
In the book, Mary also writes about her recent fertility struggles after suffering a miscarriage last year, saying that she wants ‘the bad that happened to me to help other people’
When it comes down to the message she hopes fans get from her book she said she hopes they know to ‘keep moving forward.’
‘Whatever it is that you’re going through, you’ll get through it, just like everything else in your life. Just keep believing in yourself because I never believed that I would be where I am now either,’ she said.
‘Stay positive. Pick yourself back up and be happy. Appreciate all the good things — because they will come.’
Selling Sunshine: Surviving Teenage Motherhood, Thriving in Luxury Real Estate, and Finally Finding My Voice, hits bookstore shelves on September 24.
