Actress Gabrielle Union defends Birth of a Nation despite Nate Parker rape allegations in poignant essay

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.

As much as that revelation pushed Union into what she described as a "state of stomach-churning confusion," she maintains that the film, and its message, are still significant:

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Still, Union wrote, as "important and ground-breaking as this film is, I cannot take these allegations lightly."

The film, about 19th-century slave and preacher Nat Turner, comes out Oct. 7. You can read Union's full essay at the Los Angeles Times.