Actress Gabrielle Union's role as a sexual assault victim in the upcoming film Birth of a Nation hit particularly close to home for her. Union admitted last February that she was raped at gunpoint at the age of 19.
But, she acknowledged in a moving essay published Friday in the Los Angeles Times, she isn't the film's only star with personal ties to the matter. After Union signed onto the film, allegations about Nate Parker, the movie's director and star, resurfaced. Parker was charged with rape in 1999, but then acquitted in 2001; the alleged victim committed suicide in 2012.
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