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Monday, 1 September 2008

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SHOCK! Dame Helen Mirren: I was date-raped

Actress was made to have sex against her will

Dame Helen Mirren won an Oscar for The Queen

Dame Helen Mirren says she was date-raped when she was a student in London.

‘I was pretty naïve,’ she explains. ‘I went to a convent school until I was 18 and had never spent a night away from home, or gone to parties, or any of that.

‘So I was very innocent when I went to college in London, and I was living on my own. And I found guys were horrible, mean, rude, insulting, and so without feeling.

'And I was looking for love and for someone who just liked me, made me laugh and was nice to me. And instead I just met all these creeps.’

The Oscar-winning actress says it happened twice.

‘I was [date-raped], yes,’ she says. ‘A couple of times. Not with excessive violence, or being hit, but rather being locked in a room and made to have sex against my will.’

But Dame Helen, 63, never reported the incidents.

‘It's such a tricky area, isn't it?’ she tells GQ. ‘Especially if there is no violence.

'I guess it is one of the many subtle parts of the men/women relationship that has to be negotiated and worked out between them.’