The Biggest Bombshells from Kerry Washington’s New Memoir: From Her Secret Wedding to a Heartbreaking Miscarriage

These days, Kerry Washington is still surprising herself.

“I was a very private person when it came to the public, so I never thought I would sit down and write a memoir about my life from soup to nuts,” the 46-year-old star tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue of Writing Her Memoirs, Thicker than water, now available at Little, Brown Spark. – I can’t believe that I wrote that.

Indeed, Washington has long been adamant about protecting her personal life, including her 10-year marriage to soccer star-turned-actor Nnamdi Asomugha, 42, and the lives of their three children, Isabella, 9, Caleb, 6, and their teenage daughter from Asomugha’s previous relationship.

But after learning a painful family secret—that her father was not her biological father—Washington looked back on her past trauma and embarked on a journey of self-reflection. She is now pulling back the curtain as an act of radical transparency.

“There’s a saying, ‘You’re only as sick as your secrets,'” she says. “I think there’s truth to that. There’s so much healing and release in the truth and we don’t feel like we have to hide.”

From the reason her parents broke the shocking news to her just five years ago, to the stories she’s never told about her marriage and fertility journey, Washington is an open book. These are the biggest bombshells from the star’s new memoir which reveal, Thicker than water.

Kerry Washington’s memoir, Thicker Than Water (left) and on a photo shoot for PEOPLE (right).

Josefina Santos

Kerry Washington celebrates the completion of her new memoir ‘Thicker Than Water’ which took ‘4 years to write’

As a child, Washington experienced terrifying panic attacks

Kerry Washington.

Kerry Washington/Instagram

IN Thickerthe star, who is an only child, writes that at the age of 7 she experienced paralyzing anxiety and panic attacks. The attacks were triggered by huge arguments her parents, Valerie, a teacher, and Earl, a real estate agent, both 83, would have at night when they thought she was asleep.

“I was dizzy with terror, without the ground beneath me; it was crazy, endless. And sad,” she writes.

Kerry Washington recalls suffering from panic attacks at age 7 in new memoir: ‘Dazed by Terror’

She also often felt that she was hiding something.

Later, as a teenager, “I thought my parents had a terrible marriage,” she tells PEOPLE. “Like, why are they together? And I remember my mom saying to me, ‘We had beautiful years before you were even born and during the years you can’t remember.’ I learned not to understand the fullness of their journey together.”

As a child, she was repeatedly sexually abused by a peer

Kerry Washington.

Frank Micelotta/PictureGroup for Disney Television/Shutterstock

Washington paints a well-connected village in the Bronx, her childhood neighborhood. But she says her innocence and sense of security were almost destroyed when the boy began touching her inappropriately during a group sleepover where their parents were in another room.

Kerry Washington tells Robin Roberts why she chose to hide abuse from a boy who touched her inappropriately

“He was not a pedophile,” she writes, choosing not to identify the boy in the text. “The truth remains that things were done to me – while I was asleep, and without my consent – but the perpetrator was a child himself. It was partly my sympathy for him that kept those incidents secret, locked away in the vault of my mind.”

Washington, who chose not to tell her parents, says she thinks about that trauma often. “I think about that little girl standing in the hallway deciding whether or not to tell her mom what’s happening to her. I wish she’d gotten help sooner because she’s been carrying that secrecy, shame, and guilt for too long.”

She had a same-sex relationship once

Kerry Washington stars in “Scandal.”. David Shankbone/Flickr.com

IN Thicker, Washington opens up about a period in her youth when she was dating a girl. “In my adolescent years, I had an ongoing romantic relationship with a girl,” she writes. “Mom casually asked, ‘What’s going on with you two?’ But I called her bluff. ‘Do you really want to know?’ I said, hoping not. Counting on it, actually. ‘No,’ she said.”

“I think love comes in many forms. I’ve had other romantic relationships,” she says now of life and love before Asomugha. “I think there’s always been this dialogue between learning to love yourself and learning to love others and receiving love.”

In college, trauma and the need for perfection led to a painful eating disorder

Kerry Washington.

Courtesy of Kerry Washington

“In many ways, it was one of the darkest periods of my life,” says Washington, who describes in her book “a toxic cycle of self-abuse that used the tools of starvation, overeating, body obsession and compulsive exercise” while attending university in the ’90s. George Washington.

Kerry Washington on the ‘Toxic Cycle’ of Binge Eating and Starvation Due to Trauma and Secrets (Exclusive Excerpt)

Looking back on that period now, she says, “Kerry was a real mess in college … and a bit of a wild child. But halfway through college I started asking for help. In a way, I’m really grateful for Kerry in college because hitting rock bottom in a way that she did, it opened the door to a lot more healing for me.”

These days, her mental and physical health journey includes yoga and pilates. “I still sometimes have that message in my brain, that I’m not good enough or that I should look better,” she says. “But now I can choose other patterns of thinking.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up to date with the best PEOPLE has to offer.

Washington reveals that she miscarried

Kerry Washington. Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage

The star says she pondered whether to share this detail of her journey, which took place during her 20s.

“I wasn’t really sure where it fit into the story of my life,” she says, “but I started to feel that it was very important for me to share this story because it had so much to do with my understanding of myself and the world as my career unfolded.”

It is written not long after the success Save the last dance 2001 and accepts the lead role in Spike Lee’s 2003 drama. She hates me, she had a relationship that led to an unplanned pregnancy. She made a difficult choice.

Kerry Washington Reveals Miscarriage: ‘It Was Really Important for Me to Share’ (Exclusive)

“When the nurse called my fake name, I followed her into the small surgery,” she writes of hiding her identity to undergo the procedure. “My body was hot with shame.”

Now she knows she had nothing to be ashamed of. “Abortion is not a bad word,” she says. “I’m spilling some of my secrets because I don’t want what I don’t say to make anyone think they’re ashamed of this election.”

She shares never-before-told details of her secret wedding to Nnamdi Asomugh in 2013.

Nnamdi Asomugha and Kerry Washington. Bryan Bedder/Getty

Washington and the former Raiders cornerback were married in June 2013 at a friend’s home in Sun Valley, Idaho.

The star wrote: “For months I wore my engagement ring secretly tucked inside my clothes for fear that it would be impossible to hold a wedding away from public spectacle if people knew we were engaged.”

Who is Kerry Washington’s husband? All about Nnamdi Asomugha

The couple made it. Now, as she puts their love story in the spotlight 10 years later, “It’s so weird for him,” she says of Asomugha, who has long shared her penchant for privacy.

“And it’s weird to me that some of those details are being put out into the world. I’m really grateful that he let me put some of that out there because I think it was really relevant to telling the story of my coming into being a person who feels solid enough and independent to be able to dedicate myself to another person.”

Her parents revealed her secret after learning she was planning to take a DNA test to appear on PBS Know your roots

Kerry Washington with mom Valerie and dad Earl.

Josefina Santos

Washington shares that her parents almost decided to take the truth about her paternity — that they used an anonymous sperm donor — to the grave, until they learned that it required her scheduled appearance on Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s hit celebrity genealogy show. DNA test.

They called an unexpected family meeting. “43 years ago, it was very difficult for us to have a child,” she writes about what her mother told her at a sit-down in 2018. She awkwardly continued, “We used sperm. We used another man’s sperm.”

Kerry Washington recently revealed her dad is not her biological father: ‘Now I know my story’ (Exclusive)

The star says the news turned “my world upside down”, but their honesty brought them all closer than ever before. “My parents are really, really special people,” she says. “At some point we have to accept that our parents are doing the best they can and then we have to fill the void by being parents ourselves and being the adults we want to be. I always knew how much they loved me.”

Personally, she says, “I think I learned a lot about myself, why I struggled and felt incomplete for most of my life.”

She’s currently working with a team to try to locate her biological father, but says she’s happy no matter how things turn out. “I’ve learned to try to let those things go. I deserve to live fully in my truth. And with joy.”

For more on Kerry Washington’s life and the unveiling of her new memoir, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, out Friday, or subscribe here.

Washington’s Memoirs, Thicker than waterit is now available wherever books are sold.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education