On the surface they might seem to have little in common. One is an actress and activist who’s been in the public eye since she was eight. The other, a professor and research scientist who has spent most of her life out of the limelight.
But Alyssa Milano and Christine Blasey Ford share a bond: Both stand with the ranks of women who identify as sexual assault survivors.
Ford’s decision to come forward with claims that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh attacked her at a high school party in the 1980s has thrown America—and her own life—into an uproar. As a result of her reluctant choice to voice the allegations, which Kavanaugh categorically and emphatically denies, she’s been besieged by doubters and death threats.
But Ford has also generated a groundswell of emotional support, and in this case, of the financial variety as well: “We have to support Dr. Ford in any way we possibly can, and to me, part of that means assisting in her legal bills,” Milano told Glamour by phone Friday, marking the official rollout of a new GoFundMe campaign,“We Believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.”
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The campaign includes groups like #VoteProChoice—whose founder, Heidi Sieck, was among those recently arrested for protesting Kavanaugh’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings. The current GoFundMe goal: To raise $100,000 to underwrite Ford’s “legal and communications strategy.”
Milano is known not only for her acting or antipoverty missions as a UNICEF ambassador: She has used her celebrity to champion the #MeToo movement and has detailed her own experiences with harassment and misconduct. The activist said she has not yet spoken directly with Ford, who first publicly identified herself as Kavanaugh’s accuser to The Washington Post, but has been in contact with her attorney’s office.
To the professor, whose Senate testimony plans have not yet been set, “I hope she feels the love and support and the heartache that women feel in standing in solidarity with her,” Milano says. “I want her to know that if she needs anything at all, that I'm here and I want to thank her for her bravery in doing the right thing for the country, even though it's the harder thing for her personally.”
And she adds, “For every woman that has been triggered by this, you're not alone. We stand with you. I'm right next to you. I understand. I see you. I hear you. I feel you.”
Why did she choose these particular words of comfort and support?
"It's all the things I wish people would say or would have said to me when I was sexually abused," Milano replies.
President Donald Trump’s Friday Twitter weigh-in to defend Kavanaugh and question why Ford hadn’t gone public earlier sat poorly with Milano, who calls herself “appalled” and “angry” with the process and the cultural and political climate that could foster it.
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“Does he just have no idea how this works? Or is he trying to fool the American people? The majority of sexual assaults go unreported. That is a fact,” Milano says.
“Her credibility is being questioned. This woman has zero reason to lie,” she says of Ford. “She is not on trial. Christine Blasey Ford is not on trial.”
Milano took some of her outrage to Twitter, using the platform to confront the president directly: "Hey, @realDonaldTrump, Listen the fuck up. I was sexually assaulted twice. Once when I was a teenager. I never filed a police report and it took me 30 years to tell me parents," she wrote, using the #MeToo hashtag and inviting others to respond.
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The coalition Milano is working with to raise money for Ford includes Lady Parts Justice League and Lizz Winstead; SisterSong: National Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective; Trans United Fund; Ultraviolet and Shaunna Thomas; Democrats.com; Humanity for Progress; and others.
Not lost on these activists: the imperfect parallels between Ford’s case and that of Anita Hill, the law professor who was vilified after she accused then Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of past sexual harassment amid his 1991 confirmation hearings.
“Black women know all too well the pain and degradation that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is facing now that she has come forward and that Anita Hill endured nearly 30 years ago,” SisterSong said in a statement provided to Glamour. “We are speaking out with Dr. Ford. We believe her. We support her. We stand with Anita and with every woman and girl of color told to stay silent or bullied into silence by a culture and a system does not value our voices, our bodies, or our lives.”
Karla Gonzales Garcia of the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights, also saluted Ford: "We know all too well the risk she is taking [because] she understands how important it is to halt the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. The women of this country cannot afford to have another sexual predator on the highest court in the land and the women in our community will not stand by silently and allow this to happen."
Neither the White House nor Ford’s attorney immediately responded Friday to Glamour requests for comment about the fund-raising initiative.
Milano, for her part, is up front about having bone-deep political disagreements with both Trump and Kavanaugh that go way beyond the current turmoil surrounding Ford’s allegations. But no matter what ultimately happens with the SCOTUS confirmation, she says what America is watching play out right now is cause for another grave concern.
"We are certainly not making it easier for young women to come forward and report their sexual assault or abuses. What that prevents is the capacity for healing and growth and change of the systemic social issues that we face within the country," she says.
“We're witnessing exactly all of Dr. Ford's worst fears realized."
Celeste Katz is senior politics reporter for Glamour. Send news tips, questions, and comments to celeste_katz@condenast.com.
