HelloBeautiful, a digital content property owned by iONE digital has released its latest cover featuring the iconic actress, Gabrielle Union. The latest digital cover puts a spotlight on Union as she opens up to activist and founder of the #MeToo movement, Tarana Burke, about her role as Eva in the Season 3 Apple TV+ Series “Truth Be Told” and the toll it took on her as she uncovered her past trauma.
Union portrays a high school principal who helps a true crime podcaster bring awareness to missing Black girls in their community. While speaking to HelloBeautiful, she also goes in-depth about finding herself throughout her career and navigating through being a wife and a mother.
During her interview with HelloBeautiful, Union states “I thought I was gonna be prepared. I was not. We had covered sexual sex trafficking in Atlanta on Being Mary Jane. And through those contacts, through that information, I was able to plug back in and get updated information. Cause you know who doesn’t sleep?
Sex traffickers, human traffickers. And they have altered their strategies in the seven, eight years since we covered it on Being Mary Jane. So I needed to know what the victims were experiencing today. What grooming looked like; what straight up kidnapping looked like. Grooming takes a while, and the sex trade waits for no one.
I just had to dive into personal stories of girls and women who have gone on record and shared their truths. And just each one moved me closer to Eva.”
Union also delves into details around some of her most traumatic memories, dealing with a previous rape experience and how she identified with her character Eva on a deeper level: “I can clearly describe the feeling of in the midst of watching, like hovering over myself looking down and watching it happen.
And just being like, I can’t believe this is happening to me. And I remember thinking, I’ve done everything right. I’m a good girl, I’m a good student, I’m a good athlete. Like this isn’t supposed to happen to me. There was a disbelief and the way I’ve always told it is as soon as my rapist asked me to hand him his gun is when the me from hovering above me slammed back into the me in my body. And I’ve been free of disassociation since then.”
But as the smoke clears, Union leans into the most joyous times in her life – being an exceptionally balanced wife and mother, and how she turned a trajectory of shame into unconditional love and self-care. “Finding the love of my life was also wrapped in traumatic fuckery. A whirlwind of fuckery. And I cannot separate my personal evolution from that trauma” states Union.
“And part of it is just really reclaiming my soul. Cause I had kind of tossed the baby out with the bath water and I saw myself circling the drain and was like, wait, I might need that. I saved myself and I had to decide how do I wanna move on from here? And I made the decision differently than when I got divorced.
And here I was like, I need someone to love me for me, whether I have this wig, this weave, my natural hair. I need to love me, all of me. And I need whoever else claims to love me, to love all of me and to see all of me and to know what that even looks like.”
