In wake of sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood actress Reese Witherspoon has now revealed that she was sexually assaulted by a director at the very beginning of his career.

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Reese Witherspoon
Reese Witherspoon speaks onstage during ELLE's 24th Annual Women in Hollywood Celebration presented by L'Oreal Paris, Real Is Rare, Real Is A Diamond and CALVIN KLEIN at Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills on October 16, 2017 in Los Angeles, California.Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for ELLE

While delivering an empowering speech at the Elle Women in Hollywood (ELLEWIH) event on Monday, the 41-year-old actress said that she has her own experiences that have come back to her very vividly. She says that he "finds it really hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate a lot of the feelings" and that she has been "having about anxiety, honest, the guilt for not speaking up earlier."

Reese Witherspoon and daughter Ava Phillippe
Reese Witherspoon (L) and Ava PhillippeNeilson Barnard/Getty Images for ELLE

"[I feel] true disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment," she added.

"And I wish that I could tell you that was an isolated incident in my career, but sadly it wasn't. I've had multiple experiences of harassment and sexual assault and I don't speak about them very often."

At the event held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, the Big Little Lies star continued, "This has been a really hard week for women in Hollywood, for women all over the world, and a lot of situations and a lot of industries are forced to remember and relive a lot of ugly truths."

But after hearing all those horrifying details of Harvey Weinstein scandal for the past few days, the Oscar-winning actress realised that she is not alone anymore. She continued, "it has made me want to speak up and speak up loudly because I actually felt less alone this week than I have ever felt in my entire career."

Adding, "I have just spoken to so many actresses and writers, particularly women, who have had similar experiences and many of them have bravely gone public with their stories. That truth is very encouraging to me and everyone out there in the world because you can only heal by telling the truth."

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