Excerpts from an upcoming memoir by The Umbrella Academy actor Elliot Page have revealed the Juno star allegedly received a rape threat from an “acquaintance” at a Los Angeles party – six years before they came out as transgender.
Page came out as gay in 2014, but in a section of the book seen and shared by People, the 36-year-old details an incident at a birthday party two months later in which the unnamed individual claimed, “you aren’t gay – that doesn’t exist” and that the Canadian was “just afraid of men”.
The chapter, titled “Famous A**hole at Party”, goes on to add the male then reportedly told Page: “I’m going to f*** you to make you realise you aren’t gay.”
Despite the threat of ‘corrective rape’ – a hate crime where the abuser seeks to change or ‘cure’ a person’s sexuality, often to heterosexuality – the anonymous actor apparently told Page at the gym, where they saw each other again a few days later, that they “don’t have a problem with gay people, I swear.”
“I think you might,” Page replied.
Expanding on the situation, Page told People he’s had “some version” of the incident “happen many times throughout my life”.
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“A lot of queer and trans people deal with it incessantly. These moments that we often like don’t talk about or we’re supposed to just brush off, when actually it’s very awful.
“I put that story in the book because it’s about highlighting the reality, the s*** we deal with and what gets sent to us constantly – particularly in environments that are predominantly cis and heterosexual.
“How we navigate that world where you either have more extreme, overt moments like that, or you have the more, like, subtle jokes. [In Hollywood] these are very powerful people – they’re the ones choosing what stories are being told and creating content for people to see all around the world,” they said.
Page added that although he’s “purposely” not sharing the name of the individual, the person “will hear about this and know it’s him”, and there were others who saw and heard what happened at the party.
Pageboy is published on Tuesday.
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