Selma Blair Details Being Sexually Assaulted By Her Boarding School Dean: 'He Broke Me'

[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]

Selma Blair is opening up about a traumatic experience from her younger years.

In her new memoir Mean Baby, the Legally Blonde star got candid about the pain she dealt with after a high school administrator sexually assaulted her as a teenager.

Recalling her relationship with one of the deans of Cranbrook boarding school she attended in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, the actress wrote:

“I counted on him for everything. I really couldn’t believe my good fortune in having such a wonderful mentor and friend. What hurt me from this was that he would make such a mistake. That was it.”

The star went on to describe the man she “trusted,” writing:

“I thought he was the greatest man I had ever met. Handsome. Tall. So generous. I’m sure you can see where this is all going. But at that time, I couldn’t have predicted it. I trusted authority. I was just a teenager.”

The alleged incident went down the day before winter break her freshman year. Blair said she went to his office to exchange gifts, but when they went to say goodbye, the dean made an extremely inappropriate move.

She wrote:

“We embraced. It felt too long and too still and too quiet. His hand went to the small of my back, tracing the space just above my tailbone. His lips were on my mouth. Please, I thought. Please don’t go under my pants, my dress-code-approved Ralph Lauren khakis into which I’d carefully tucked a plaid shirt Please. You are a grown-up and I love you; please do not put your hand inside my pants. But he did. It was a simple thing. He didn’t rape me. He didn’t threaten me. But he broke me. Nothing ever happened again, but I never felt safe.”

To make matters worse, Selma’s mother told her to stay quiet about the matter. She continued:

“When I told my mother he had kissed me she took a deep breath. ‘You must not tell anybody. He’s beloved at that school. And you’ll just be a troubled girl . . . I’m sorry.’ At the end of my senior year, he came over to congratulate me for winning a writing award. Then he turned to my mother and said, ‘You must be so proud.’ She just looked at him, stone-faced. Then: ‘I know what you did. Stay away from my daughter.’ He walked away.”

Although she’ll always be trying to heal from the experience, the 49-year-old said she doesn’t let it affect how she views her romantic future — even though she’s currently less focused on dating and more focused on being a single mom to her 10-year-old son Arthur, whom she shares with ex Jason Bleick.

She explained:

“I’ve had some wonderful relationships where there wasn’t drama. But I don’t even think of [future romantic relationships]. I know with everything that life can bring, that I really don’t say ‘never’ to some things– I say never to alcohol — and there are a couple things for which the dance card is full unequivocally, but I wouldn’t say never [to a relationship]. It’s just not at all where my energy lies. Everything is with Arthur now.”

Mean Baby hits shelves on May 17. Will U be picking up a copy?

[Image via People/YouTube]