Singer Kelly Clarkson has encouraged sexual assault survivors to speak up about their abuse to receive validation from others that "something horrible" happened to them.
The Stronger hitmaker has been closely following the stories shared by victims of alleged serial sex abuser and harasser Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced movie mogul who stands accused of assault and misconduct by dozens of women in Hollywood.
Kelly has also been reading accounts of abuse shared by women and other sexual assault victims online as part of the #MeToo social media campaign, and she is delighted survivors are brave enough to open up about their trauma.
"The reason why I feel like they should talk about it isn't necessarily just to bring the light on someone that might be doing it to other people," she explains to USA Today. "But secondly, because I don't think people are able to heal without voicing it, without having it validated that something horrible happened to them, and they suppress it.
"I've just had a couple of friends from childhood that had some really f**ked up things happen to them and they kept quiet about it for so long, and it affected them. And people don't get the gravity, the weight, the longevity of that."
Clarkson feels "blessed" to have avoided sexual harassment and assault throughout her life, but her heart goes out to others who have been victimised.
“My husband (Brandon Blackstock) and I will turn on the news (about Weinstein)... and he’ll ask me, ‘What would you do in that situation?'" she recalls. "And I'm like, 'I don't even know. I might have just frozen'. Because you’re f**king in shock. Because you think you’ll just run away, but you can't; you have no idea what's about to happen. So it's, like, it's scary. I mean, I just I don't even know (what I would do)..."
Kelly has encouraged people who are being harassed on the job to look for better opportunities "in an equal, normal environment" with colleagues who "love and support you".
"You know unfortunately, I think a lot of people think, 'Well, I have to keep working with this person or I won't be able to have a career'," she notes. "I think you just have to say, 'At the end of the day, is this (abuse) worth me putting up with? Is that worth it?' Because I'm going to guarantee you, if people are being honest with themselves, it's not."
