Emma Thompson sexually assaulted by magician during 8th birthday party

Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson has opened up for the first time about an extremely disturbing encounter with a magician as a child and how the lingering memory of that moment currently guides the parenting of her 13-year-old daughter Gaia.

In an interview with The Mirror, the 54-year-old shared a revolting story about an assault by an aging magician who performed at her 8th birthday party.

“My parents brought him to the house for my party. He was an old man with grey hair. And he took me behind a door and said, ‘Would you like a sweetie? I said, ‘Oh, yes please,’ but I had a funny feeling. He gave me the sweet and said, ‘Will you give me a kiss?’ and I said yes. So I went up to kiss him on the cheek and he planted his mouth on mine, stuck his tongue in my mouth and wiggled it about. I thought it was my fault – children always think it’s their fault.”

Emma decided to share this difficult memory in hopes of bringing awareness to the pitfalls and perils children face, especially now that they find themselves in the age of readily available social media. The Nanny McPhee star feels so strongly about the topic that she’s even penned her own handbook on sex and emotion for her teenage daughter Gaia.

Emma Thompson and her daughter Gaia

Thompson added,

“There are so many more pressures. The sort of sexual questions being put to young kids is horrifying to me, but that’s what’s out there – boys and girls watching pornography, boys showing girls hardc0re p0rn on their iPhones. I’m in a constant state of anxiety but I know these kids have to negotiate these thickets by themselves. We can only help by listening, being aware, by not turning away and by not saying, ‘Oh, that’s all so disgusting I can’t even think about it.’ So I wrote my daughter a handbook about where emotions are felt in the body, about sexual feelings and the connection between sex and emotions. And I drew pictures and said, ‘You know, you can sometimes feel things in your loins you don’t feel in your heart, and you need to look at that. If you listen to what’s going on in your emotional language, you will be able to keep the sexual activities safe.’”

Emma Thompson became an international star after she won an Oscar for her performance in Howards End. She’s discussed an ongoing battle with depression in the past including having taken time off to cope. She’s set to appear in the upcoming film Saving Mr. Banks alongside Tom Hanks.