Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped, confined, and repeatedly raped as a 14-year-old, disclosed in a shocking interview that her days of enduring sexual assault were not left behind in her teens.
In fact, just last summer she was sexually assaulted on a Delta flight homebound for Salt Lake City.
In an interview with CBS This Morning, Smart revealed that a man sitting by her began feeling up her legs while she was asleep. This was the first time she had ever felt unsafe on an airplane.
“I’ve always felt safe on an airplane,” said Smart. “I’ve never been worried, I’ve never felt threatened on an airplane until now.”
“I had been asleep and all of a sudden, I woke up because I felt someone’s hand rubbing in between my legs, on my inner thigh,” the 32-year-old explained.
Completely taken aback by the man’s audacity, she froze, not knowing what to do.
“I was shocked. The last time someone touched me without my say-so was when I was kidnapped,” said Smart. “And I froze. I did not know what to do.”
Seeing as she regularly acts as a champion for women to protect themselves, Smart couldn’t believe that she of all people was at a loss for what to do or say.
“I speak to other women about it,” she shared. “I say, ‘It’s okay to say no, and it’s okay to take care of yourself and be safe’. I kept saying to myself, ‘You’re Elizabeth Smart. You should know what to do!?'”
