Stacey Dash Reveals That She Was Raped At Gunpoint In Front Of Newborn Son

Stacey Dash’s New Book Reveals Past Trauma With Rape And Drugs Usage

Despite being the target of much of our (deserved) criticism, Stacey Dash has lived a REALLY f***ed up life.

The actress has suffered molestation, depression, suicidal thoughts, rape and more. She is revealing all of her traumas and dramas in her new memoir There Goes My Social Life.

She told PEOPLE:

“Sometimes my past is extraordinarily heavy,” Dash, 49, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “That’s when I scream and cry until I feel like I can breathe again.”

Dash was just four years old, living in South Bronx, New York, when she was molested for the first time by a 16-year-old family acquaintance. At sixteen, she was offered a line of cocaine, and quickly fell into an all-consuming addiction.

“I couldn’t find happiness,” says Dash. “It got to a point where I didn’t even want to live anymore. The voice in my head was saying, ‘There’s nothing here for you.'”

Stacey also chronicled the abuse she suffered at the hands of her ex-boyfriend in her early 20s.

“He would punch me in my body, my legs, my chest, anything that could be covered,” says Dash. “But part of me felt like I deserved it because what I was coming from was no better. I didn’t have an identity. That’s why I fight for women and people in the inner cities today. I want them to know it will get better.”

Dash ended things with her abuser and then after entering into a relationship with musician Christopher Williams, learned she was pregnant with Williams’ child.

Reveals Dash: “When I got pregnant, I was doing a lot of drugs and I didn’t want to live. I wanted to die. I was going to have an abortion. I was crying and I said to God, ‘Please tell me what to do.’ And God told me, ‘Keep your son.’ I ripped the IV out of my arm and I said, ‘I’m keeping my son.'”

This doesn’t make her terrible opinions any more tolerable, but damn she’s been through it.

Image via WENN