Anika Noni Rose Reveals She Was Sexually Violated on a Plane Last Year

blogged by: @ashleytearra

For the first time, actress Anika Noni Rose is ready to break her silence about her sexual assault.

In an interview with SiriusXM’s “Make it Plain with Mark Thompson”, Rose revealed that she’d actually been assaulted on a flight by a male passenger who was sitting right beside her.

“I have never spoken on this, but I will say this out loud now. I was assaulted on a plane last year,” she admits, fighting back the tears. “This is the first time I’ve ever spoken on this. It’s a tough thing to deal with.”

According to “The Quad” actress, it was just another one of her routine in-air travel naps when she was awakened by the stranger’s touch of violation.
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Frightened, she alerted the flight crew for the man to be removed elsewhere, and they offered her the option to turn the plane around. But, she declined, not wanting to interrupt anyone else’s route to their destination. However, she says that’s when things escalated, and the inappropriate behavior continued.
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“I was shaking. I was so upset and so hurt and angry. I wanted to punch that man,” Rose says. “I knew that would take away from the story that I had to tell. So, I had to hold in everything that I was feeling to be able to tell this story and be heard and taken seriously in the place that I was in.”

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Shortly after, she agreed to turn the plane around, and the assaulter was quickly made to exit. Immediately, she went to go file a report.
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Rose says that the FBI has since dropped the case, and no one will even tell her the name of the man who assaulted her.
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“There’s a Freedom of Information Act. You’re supposed to be able to get people’s names. I made a report right then with the FBI, and they’ve dropped it,” she chokes up again. “You’re walking around in circles asking information that is owed to you.”
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Although Rose did manage to get an image of the man who attacked her, not even the airline would tell her his name, which, from what she was told, is allegedly against their policy to reveal that information.
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The struggle for justice eventually discouraged Rose.
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“I can honestly say that I have not done much with it. I filed my report; I followed up with the police like I was told to do. The police did nothing.”
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But, through it all, she assures that she’s not finished and is going to keep fighting.
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“It doesn’t have to be in Hollywood; you don’t have to be dressed up. I was on a place, in a skullcap, looking like a kid, basically, and this person felt free to touch me,” she adds. “I’m not finished.”