Ashley Graham Details Her Experience With Sexual Assault

Ashley Graham is opening up about being sexually assaulted when she was only 10-years-old. The now 29-year-old model gave the details in a cover story for Glamour magazine.

In the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit star’s new book, A New Model, she revealed that an 18-year-old boy once made her grab his penis. Graham explained that as she has gotten older that she has become aware that the altercation definitely classified as sexual assault, even though she was extremely confused about the situation at the time.

“Now I know that. At the time I didn’t. Then, it was like, ‘Did I do something to provoke that?’ Or, ‘Did I give them a signal that it was OK?’ The insecure girl inside me was like, ‘Well, maybe I did something.’ To all those girls out there: No, you didn’t do anything,” she said.

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The Vogue cover girl also explained that she has experienced inappropriate advances while doing modeling gigs.

“There was an incident on set of a campaign job when I was 17-years-old – I haven’t told this story – and there was a photo assistant who was into me. He was like, ‘Hey, come here,’ and he led me into a closet. And I was like, ‘What?’ I thought he was going to show me something. And he pulled me in, and he pulled his penis out. And he was like, ‘Grab it.’ And I was like, ‘No! That’s disgusting.’ I freaked out. And thank God I was closer to the door, and I just bolted out.”

When asked if she told anyone about the incident at the time, Graham said: “No. And sure enough, I’ve seen him at jobs since. I even knew a girl he dated. I didn’t tell her because there was a voice in me that said, ‘Maybe he’s changed.’ It was my young mentality. But I told myself, ever since that incident, that I wasn’t going to allow someone at work to manipulate what I wanted to do on set. So any image that you see out there is one that I wanted to take.”

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While the brunette beauty is happily married now, she has had her fair share of bad relationships.

“There was a point in my life where I had dated a terrible guy,” Graham said. “Our whole relationship was based on sex. And I was letting him dictate who I was by his behavior, drinking problem, and abuse. One night he chased me around the kitchen with a butcher knife, and I ran into the bathroom and called my mom. I feared for my life. I was like, ‘He’s going to slice my face open and I’m not going to have a career.’ That was an eye-opening experience for me. So with my next relationship, I didn’t want it to be based on sex.”

As for her plans for the future, Ashley Graham says that she only has a couple more items to cross off the vision board that she created several years ago.

“Only a few things – which are in the works. Isn’t that wild?” she said. “But, you know, I’m a woman of faith. And I really believe that if I say, ‘God, this is what I want,’ He says, ‘I’ll give you your desires, as long as they line up with My will.’ And why wouldn’t it line up with His will for me to let women know that they should love the skin they’re in?”