Mary Bonnet Says Memories of Night She Was Sexually Assaulted by an Acquaintance ‘Still Haunt Me’ (Exclusive)

Content Warning: This story contains disturbing descriptions of alleged sexual assault.

In her new memoir, Mary Bonnet talks about a traumatic experience in which she was sexually assaulted by an acquaintance, Selling Sunshine.

The Selling Sunset star, real estate agent and vice president of the Oppenheim Group, 44, tells PEOPLE that the process of writing her first book — which also deals with her experience with teenage motherhood, two divorces, toxic relationships and other deeply personal moments — was “very difficult. ”

“I had to really go back to situations that I never want to go back to and really think about how to properly describe the situations,” she says. “I had to talk to my therapist a lot to make sure I was coping well.”

In the book’s sixth chapter, titled “Rock Bottom,” Bonnet recalls the Memorial Day weekend a decade ago when she accepted an invitation from an acquaintance of her friend (and now Selling Sunset costar) Amanza Smith.

She only calls the man “Joe”.

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Selling SunsetMary Bonnet ‘Brings My Past to Life’ in New Memoir (Exclusive)

Bonnet writes that Joe asked her to meet at his apartment in Los Angeles, where a friend with whom she used to hang out was going to join him. Then they were supposed to “go out with a fun group”.

However, when she arrived at Joe’s home, she said it was just the two of them, and Joe offered her a wine glass filled with a “bright blue liquid” that he told her was a vodka cocktail.

After a while, Bonnet realized that her mind had become “blurry” and her eyelids had “become heavy”, and she eventually passed out.

“When I woke up, I was on Joe’s bed, my hands pinned to his mattress and my pants around my ankles,” she writes. “He was on me and in me.”

Bonnet remembers running out of the apartment, “screaming and shaking” in her car and then going into “total survival mode.”

She concludes the chapter by reflecting on how the experience continues to affect her.

“The consequences of that night still haunt me,” she writes. “I never go to the houses of people I don’t know. I won’t be alone with any man I haven’t been friends with for at least five years or who is 100 percent gay, so I know I’m safe.”

Mary Bonnet.

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In the period following the incident, Bonnet relied on friends like Smith, who was dating actor Taye Diggs at the time.

“Right after that I went to New York with both of them,” Bonnet recalls to PEOPLE. “They just knew I needed to get out of there and have a new environment and feel like I was safe.”

Jason Oppenheim, with whom she previously dated and who has started working part-time at the Oppenheim Group, has also been supportive.

“When I told him, he was such a good friend, comforting and protective,” she says.

Frazer Harrison/WireImage

In 2018, Mary entered into a civil union with her husband Romain Bonnet, celebrating their wedding with a wedding ceremony the following year.

When she told Romain about the attack, she says he was “shocked”.

“He says, ‘Oh, honey, I’m sorry you went through that,'” she recalls. “I mean, well, any good husband would do that. He was just very supportive.”

She continues: “Then when I had problems, because with sex, I just subconsciously and unintentionally somehow jump and something like that if someone touches me and I don’t expect it, he was a great support for me and in that way where he tries not to understand it personally and understands that it’s just a trigger.”

The cast of ‘Selling Sunset’.

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As part of her healing process, Mary used Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), a form of therapy that helps people process traumatic memories.

“It helps and it takes time,” she says. “Talking about it helps in many situations. I mean, maybe not going into the details and living it, but talking about it and understanding that other people are there and have been there, it’s comforting.”

He also says he wants to encourage more discussion about a topic that “nobody wants to talk about.”

“We can all start being more aware of our surroundings and the situations we put ourselves in because no one is going to protect us but ourselves,” she says.

Mary’s hope that sharing her own experience would help others gave her the courage to write the heartbreaking chapter.

“It’s a scary thing to go through,” she says. “Talking about it would be no worse than living it. If I can get through it, I can get through talking about it.”

Selling Sunshine it goes on sale September 24th and is available for pre-order now, wherever books are sold.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.

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Source: HIS Education