Tess Holliday discusses being sexually assaulted: ‘I didn’t realise it was rape’

'I was into him, but I didn’t want to have sex'

(Getty Images)

Tess Holliday has spoken out about the night she was raped, revealing that she didn’t register the experience as sexual assault at the time.

The plus-size model recalled how it was only after she started talking about the two attacks, both committed by the same person, that she realised she had been raped, something she said is common for a lot of sexual assault victims.

“The first time I went back to his room. I thought he was cute,” Holliday says of her attacker.

Speaking to Cosmopolitan, she continues: “I was into him, but I didn’t want to have sex. He forced himself onto me."

“The first time I let him do it, but I was also told I had no choice. And that’s why I didn’t realise it was rape. The second time I was in his living room and he started making moves on me. I didn’t want it to happen and said no again, but it happened again.”

The 32-year-old first opened up about being sexually assaulted in October 2017 in an Instagram post that made her a leading voice in the #MeToo movement, writing that she felt “ashamed” and “scared” afterwards, adding that she blamed herself for the attack.

(Cosmopolitan UK / Ben Watts (Cosmopolitan UK / Ben Watts)

“I wish I would have known that it was okay to talk about it AND THAT IT WASN'T MY FAULT,” she wrote to her 1.5 million followers.

While most people responded with messages of support, some of Holliday’s followers left cruel comments on the post, accusing the model of bringing the attack upon herself, with one user writing: “I don't understand. If you don't say ‘no’, if you don't fight for yourself, if you just lay there and let him do it, how is the guy going to realise you don't want it? Telepathy?”

The model swiftly responded by calling out the commenter’s ignorance, writing: “Are you serious right now? I didn't ‘let him’. I told him I didn't want to and I was told if I didn't that I would be gang raped & he had a gun.

“Don't ever comment such nonsense on my page ever again.”

(Cosmopolitan UK / Ben Watts (Cosmopolitan UK / Ben Watts)

Holliday also opened up in the interview about her volatile mental health, explaining that in the months between January 2017 and Spring 2018, she was in "the worst mental health state of [her] life," recalling how she wished she "could just disappear".

"It felt like a never-ending black hole. I was so tired of hurting… I just didn’t want to be here any more,” she said.

(Cosmopolitan UK / Ben Watts (Cosmopolitan UK / Ben Watts)

Speaking about how her relationship with her body has changed in recent years, Holliday revealed that, at a UK size 26, she is the most confident she’s ever felt.

“I’m at the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life now and it took me being the heaviest to finally love myself,” she told the magazine.

The plus-size model launched a body positivity account on Instagram in 2016: @effyourbeautystandards, which has since garnered 395,000 followers.

“I created this out of frustration,” she said.

“I was angry and sad that people kept commenting on my pictures saying, ‘You’re too fat to wear that!’ or ‘Cover up! No one wants to see that!’ And then one night I was lying in bed and thought, ‘F*** that!’

“So I posted an image with four photographs of myself wearing things that fat women are often told we ‘can’t wear’, and encouraged others to do the same. That hashtag has now been used 3.2 million times!”

The full interview appears in the October 2018 issue of Cosmopolitan UK, on sale Friday 31 August.