Jena Malone says that she wants to make herself available to survivors after publicly opening up for the first time about her sexual assault.
On Feb. 28, Malone, more recently known for her role as Johanna Mason in the franchise for “The Hunger Games,” said that someone had sexually assaulted her on the set of the final movie.
Representatives for Malone and Lionsgate — the distributor for the movie franchise — did not respond to TODAY.com’s request for comment regarding the actor’s post.
In a post on her Instagram page, the actor and musician shared a photo of herself with a caption that detailed the emotional ride of coming to terms with what happened to her.
The actor started her caption with a trigger warning to her readers before conveying what she was dealing with internally when the picture was taken.
The photograph, taken in a field in France, was captured soon after filming for “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2” had ended. The last installment of the dystopian series landed in theaters in 2015.
“We were shooting in a beautiful estate in the countryside of France and I asked the driver to let me out in this field so I could cry and capture this moment,” she explained.
She said the time in Paris was “extremely hard for her.”
“I was going (through) a breakup also was sexually assaulted by someone I had worked with,” she said.
Still, in that moment, she experienced gratitude: “I was so full of gratitude for this project, the people I became close with and this amazing part I got to play.”
The “Consecration” actor described these experiences as having put her through a “swirling mix of emotions” that she is “only now just learning to sort (through).”
“I wish it wasn’t tied to such a traumatic event for me, but that is the real wildness of life, I guess. How to hold the chaos with the beauty,” she wrote. “I’ve worked very hard to heal and learn (through) restorative justice, how to make peace with the person who violated me and make peace with myself.”
The actor added that in the years since, she’s found it challenging to speak about the “Hunger Games” franchise and her role in the films “without feeling the sharpness of this moment in time.”
“But I’m ready to move (through) it and reclaim the joy and accomplishment I felt,” she remarked before addressing those who have also endured sexual assault.
She opened her DMs up to survivors: “I want to say I’m here for anyone who needs to talk, or vent or open uncommunicated spaces within themselves.”
Beyond sharing her experience, Malone replied to a comment that suggested the individual who assaulted her “got to walk away with no repercussions.”
“No, that’s not true,” she wrote in the comments. “I used restorative justice to allow healing and accountability and growth with the other person. It was a hard process but one I believe truly helped me move (through) some of the hardest parts of the grief.”
According to the nonprofit Community Justice Initiatives (CJI), which started the first modern Restorative Justice program, restorative justice is a trauma-informed approach that allows a victim to determine what can be done to amend harm after it has been done, often through mediation.
In addition to offering support, users replied to the post, recalling their own traumatic experiences.
“I’m 33 years old, and It’s been 17 years since I had my life shattered from sexual assault,” a commenter explained. “I don’t think I’ll ever not mourn the teenager and woman I could have/should have/would have been. We’re all a part of this exclusive group that literally none of us had ever wanted to sign up for. Thank you for your courage of sharing your story because every voice counts, every story told is heard, and it may just stop the next young person from joining our group.”
“You’re incredible,” another replied. “I absolutely loved your performance in that movie (every movie, really), and I’m so sorry to hear that you went through something so unbelievably awful during that time. I, too, was sexually assaulted by someone I worked with — someone I couldn’t avoid or never see again — you’re so right about it being a slow, nonlinear process. The healing never really stops, and the trauma (for me, at least) always comes back around occasionally for further processing.”
