‘Punched so hard’: Melissa Benoist shares her domestic abuse story
Supergirl actress Melissa Benoist has bravely revealed she was in an abusive relationship. The actress opened up about the abuse she suffered in an emotional video.
She uploaded a fourteen minute IGTV video called ‘Life Isn’t Always What It Seems’.
The actress shared, “I am a survivor of domestic violence or IPV (intimate partner violence), which is something I never thought I would say let alone be broadcasting into the ether.”
In the harrowing video, she details the violence she was subjected to throughout her relationship with an unnamed partner.
“The stark truth is I learned what it felt like to be pinned down and slapped repeatedly, punched so hard I felt the wind go out of me, dragged by my hair across pavement, head-butted, pinched until my skin broke, shoved against the wall so hard the drywall broke, choked.”
Melissa revealed that her partner threw his iPhone at her face resulting in permanent damage to her eye and a broken nose.
She was married to her Glee co-star Blake Jenner during this time.
After that alarming attack, the actress knew she had to escape.
“Something inside of me broke, this was too far.”
The Glee star added, “Leaving was not a walk in the park. It is not an event, it’s a process. I felt complicated feelings of guilt for leaving and for hurting someone I had protected for so long, and yes, mournful feeling of leaving something familiar.”
“Luckily, the people I let in, the more I was bolstered, I never lost the sense of clarity that kept telling me, ‘You do not deserve this.’”
The actress is now married to her Supergirl co-star Chris Wood.
