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Topics: Celebrity, Domestic Abuse, Sex and Relationships
Britt Jones
Topics: Celebrity, Domestic Abuse, Sex and Relationships
Anna Kendrick revealed that her therapist went on to apologise to her after the truth of her seven-year ‘abusive’ relationship came to light.
The actress - who starred in and directed Netflix's Woman of the Hour - appeared on an episode of Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast yesterday (October 23), where she admitted that it was ‘difficult to identify’ that she was in an abusive relationship as it ‘didn’t follow the traditional pattern’.
The 39-year-old didn’t disclose who her ex-partner was, but explained how it felt at the time being in a relationship that was wearing her down, and making her question herself.
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She said: "I was, like, reading all the articles and going, 'This doesn't look... like, some of it looks like how they're describing it, but not completely.
"It was like an overnight switch... that went on for about a year. So it didn't follow that more traditional, like, it's like a frog in boiling water thing where it started slow.”
She told Cooper that the pair went on to break up before she filmed Alice, Darling - a 2022 film depicting emotional abuse.
She shared how the abuse 'came out of absolutely nowhere, but was built on this foundation of I had so much love and trust for that person, so I thought it had to be me'.
"Like, if one of us is crazy, it must be me. So it was very, very difficult to actually go, 'No, I think this is him. I think this is his stuff,' " she continued.
"I turned my life completely upside down trying to fix whatever was wrong with me."
The Twilight star then claimed that their therapist at the time 'just bought his stuff kind of hook, line, and sinker' and this went on for 'a long period of time'.
She explained that it all came to a head in one part of the therapy sessions where 'something shifted' after she 'yelled'.
She said: "I've had several sessions with him in the last several years where he's apologised to me because I think he realised what was going on, like, right toward the end."
Kendrick then revealed that she had emailed her therapist to apologise, but he called her instead and told her that he was ‘so proud’ that she found the strength to speak out.
She revealed: "Things ended pretty quickly after that.”
Recalling an incident with her ex, she shared how he felt as though he was truly being ‘terrorised’ by her.
She said: "He told me one day I was terrorising him because I was just crying because I couldn't pretend that things were fine anymore, and I just started crying. And he screamed in my face, 'You're terrorising me'.
"But it was truly from the place of a person who believed that they were being terrorised."
Regarding her film Alice, Darling , Kendrick said she ‘didn't tell anybody’ about making a movie about emotional abuse, because it was so close to after the time her relationship has been called quits.
She said: "I had just gotten out of a relationship that was extremely similar to the movie. And I didn't want anybody to tell me to not do it."
If you are experiencing domestic violence, please know that you are not alone. You can talk in confidence to the national domestic violence helpline Refuge on 0808 2000 247, available 24/7, or via live chat, available 10am-10pm, Monday to Friday.