Mena Suvari Reclaiming Her Power Over Past Abusive Relationships

Actress Mena Suvari is revisiting her past abusive relationships so that, she says, she can gain power over them.

Mena Suvari revealed past sexual abuses, drug addiction and other horrors she suffered in a recent memoir, The Great Peace. She again went into graphic detail about those experiences in an interview with The Guardian published Wednesday.

“I was not being loved. I was just a body,” the actress said about her memoir. It was released in July 2021.

“I needed to purge this in order to move on,” she added. “I very much wanted to let it go.”

However, Mena Suvari said she is continuing to discuss the matters in interviews to continue gaining a degree of empowerment. 

Suvari gained fame through her starring roles in American Pie and American Beauty, which also starred Kevin Spacey. But before those roles, she had already suffered tremendous abuse, she alleges.

Mena Suvari’s Painful Past

A friend of one of Mena Suvari’s older brothers raped her when she was 12 years old. After he spread rumors that she was a “whore,” an ashamed Suvari denied that the incidents occurred.

“That sucked the life out of me. I think that was just excessive confirmation that no one was going to save me, no one was going to do anything for me.”

At age 13, a doctor treating her for a bladder infection began giving her contraception — but didn’t ask about her sexual activity, she said.

After becoming a model at a young age, a businessman in his mid-30s allegedly started having sex with her when she was 16.

Around the same time, she started taking crystal meth and other drugs, according to the interview. 

The downward spiral continue, despite her fledgling career, Mena Suvari detailed in her book. Another boyfriend allegedly coerced her against her will to use sex toys and engage in painful sexual activities.

“I was just a body, a receptacle for his desires,” she wrote in the book.

The boyfriend also led her to participate in threesomes even though she didn’t want to, Suvari claimed.

She told The Guardian that discussing the matters, difficult as it is, has helped her survive.

“[It’s] a daily battle,” she said. “I feel like stuff never really goes away, you just garner a new perspective on it, and a new patience for myself and more compassion.”