February 23, 2021 • 23 mins
Stephanie is joined by author Tanya Selvaratnam who opens up about her relationship with former New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman and how she escaped the abusive relationship, which is chronicled in her new book "Assume Nothing." And they discuss the importance of brining awareness to the stigma that still surrounds intimate partner violence.
For help or resources on domestic violence contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or visit www.ndvh.org.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
A quick note to our listeners, this episode contains discussions
of abuse and sexual assault. At times, the details are
graphic and they're hard to listen to, but the story
it's an important one to hear. He was a progressive,
liberal hero. He was also seen publicly as a champion
(00:20):
of women. So what was especially hypocritical and shocking and
gas lighting was the behavior that he sought to legislate against,
was the type of behavior that he inflicted on his
partners in private. And because he was a very powerful politician,
(00:42):
he was the top law enforcement officer in the state
of New York, and he was in the national spotlight
at the time that I was with him. Who knew
what he would do if I told others about what
I was experiencing. But this is why I feel like
somehow the universe intended for me to have my path
(01:02):
intersect with Eric Schneiderman and then end a pattern of
violence with his intimate partners that had been going on
for a very long time with many people knowing about it.
In The New Yorker published a story that would take
down one of the most powerful men in New York.
(01:22):
The man was Eric Schneiderman. At the time he was
the state's attorney general, someone who stood up to Trump
and for women's rights, or so we thought. What many
didn't know was that behind closed doors he allegedly did
the opposite verbally, emotionally, and physically. He allegedly abused multiple women,
women that on the surface it would appear he loved.
(01:46):
One of those women was Tanya Silveratnum. She met Schneiderman
at the Democratic National Convention in and was instantly charmed,
but very quickly, she says, the relationship began to shift.
I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor, NBC News Senior correspondent, and
This is Modern Rules, a podcast from NBC Think and
(02:06):
I Heart Radio. Tanya says that she got caught in
a situation that too many women find themselves in. Strong, smart,
successful women drawn to successful men, and then suddenly trapped,
unable to escape. So what pushed her to get out
(02:27):
of this relationship and share her story with the world.
She writes about that in her new book, Assume Nothing.
Tanya is here today to share her story and for that,
I'm grateful, Tanya. Thank you, Thank you, Stephanie. If you
can sort of take us back, tell us about your experience.
(02:48):
How this relationship even began. It started beautifully when he
first came up to me and started asking questions. It
turned out that we had both gone to Harvard, we
both had studied Chinese, we both had spent time in China.
We were also both interested in spirituality and meditation. I mean,
it was a nerdy flirtation, but also the fact that
(03:09):
he was a politician who meditated was intriguing to me.
And then it started just as a normal dating relationship.
We met in two thousand sixteen at the Democratic National Convention.
When he first approached me, it felt too good to
be true. He was so adoring and complimentary and supportive,
(03:31):
and it started like a fairy tale. But then the
darkness started to seep in as time went by, the
controlling behavior isolating me, the abusive language, the criticism, and
then the physical violence started to emerge in the sexual context.
(03:55):
And so when the abuse started emerging, yes, I was
living with him. And because of the turbulent times after
the election, after the former president took office, Eric Schneiderman
became the leader of the Democratic attorneys generals around the
country who were standing up to Trump. The national spotlight
(04:18):
was on Eric Schneiderman more than ever before, and at
the time that it was happening, I thought the abuse
was specific to me, as so many victims do. But
then I realized, through word of mouth and through friends,
that I was not the first, and I realized that
I wouldn't be the last. I am so grateful that
(04:41):
you wrote this book, that you're telling this story. You
said that at first, domestic violence didn't look like what
you expected it to explain that when it first happened,
it happened in the blink of an eye. It happens
at night, when it's dark, when you're naked. But then
(05:01):
over time the slaps became harder, and the abusive language
in the sexual context also became more dark, the slave terminology,
criticizing my skin, my scars. I have scars that run
up and down my torso from surgery. I began to
(05:22):
feel like I was in hell. But it was still
at that time hard for me to know how to
navigate it. I never thought that I would be one
of those women who got caught up in an abusive relationship.
I had never been in one before. As a child,
I grew up witnessing horrific domestic violence, and I stood
up to my own father. The domestic violence that I
(05:45):
experienced as an adult looked different. He would slap me hard,
he would try to choke me, and it happened only
during the sexual context, the physical violence. But the common
threat between what I witnessed as a child and as
an adult was the course of control, was the making
(06:09):
me always feel like I was less than. But part
of why you stay is that there's the yo yo
effect where sometimes you're made to feel like you are
making mistakes all the time. Other times you're made to
feel like you are the greatest thing that has happened
to your abusive partner. It takes a series of steps
(06:33):
to break even fear swimming down, and it happens with
that entrapment in isolation and the gas lighting and the
coercive control that by the time the physical violence emerges,
it's like you're not yourself. And when I started to
open up to friends and two experts, I realized that
(06:58):
what I went through was an experience that millions of
women and men share, and that I should not be ashamed.
People often don't understand the idea of being trapped, especially
when it's someone who on their own is successful? Is
educated you right in the book that you want to
shift the perception of what a victim looks like. So
(07:22):
what does the victim look like? Victim looks like all
of us. And the more that victims and survivors and
thrivers share their stories, the more we can chip away
at the conditioning that normalizes the cycle of violence that
we are forced to accept from the time that we
are born. You know, we are conditioned to think that
(07:44):
if a boy teases us in the playground, that he
likes us, and that's wrong. So the book kind of
reconditions our notions of masculinity. And I really hope that
men read the book. You know, the narrative, the thriller
draws the reader in and then the appendix provides the
(08:06):
reader with resources to stop and spot and prevent intimate
partner violence. In you telling this story, you're reliving your trauma. Right,
many times we're told you experience something traumatic and you
move on. And it was Alexandria Occacio Cortes and talking
about the January six attack, saying, someone who's a victim
(08:28):
faces that trauma over and over. You're putting yourself in
a position where you're facing that trauma every day that
you work on writing this book, that you talk about it,
how hard is that? Writing the book was painful and emotional,
and I was so grateful when Alexandria Calcio Cortes shared
(08:49):
her story of assault. It resonated for millions of people.
We have to chip away at the patriarchy and white supremacy,
which is very much intertwined with why violence is so normalized.
But even though the writing was painful, ultimately it's full
(09:10):
of hope because I do feel like by sharing our stories,
we begin to open doors that didn't exist before for
us to heal. When you knew you wanted to get
out of this relationship, how did you start making those motions.
It's hard when you are in an abusive relationship to
(09:32):
see a way out, and in my case, it was
especially hard to see a way out because I was
with a very powerful man. But I vividly remember the
conversation I had with a friend when I told her
that things were not going so well and she just
started asking questions. And I feel like that's something that
(09:54):
everyone can do if they suspect that a friend or
loved one is in an abusive RelA sationship is asked
questions that elicit answers, so the more questions she asked
led to more answers. And then she asked, does he
hit you? How hard was it for you to answer that?
(10:15):
Because once you said yes, you couldn't take it back. Yes,
and that was the first time I couldn't take it back.
She is like my sister, one of my closest friends.
Because she asked me a question, I was not going
to lie to her. I did not plan to tell
her that he hit me. I just planned to tell
her that I was going through a hard time. But
(10:37):
because she asked me the question and I answered yes,
I just said yes, and she said mm hmm, and
she said, tany, I want you to talk to somebody,
and she connected me with a domestic violence expert. And
after speaking with that domestic violence expert, there was no
going back. She said, I just couldn't ever see him
(11:01):
or be with him again. And I felt fortunate that
I had a great support network and I had work,
and also I had my financial independence. I think a
lot of reason why women stay in abusive relationships is
because they are financially dependent on the man. Whereas I
had friends who were telling me get out, leave drift,
(11:23):
don't think about him. And the domestic violence expert also
said to me, Tanya, you think that you're the only
one that has happened to and that the abuse was
specific to you because he customized it so well, the
way he criticized my scars, my hair, my breasts. She said,
you are probably part of a pattern. But then a
(11:43):
cosmic thing happened, which is, right after he and I
parted ways, the Harvey Weinstein story broke and the me
too movement began. We'll be back after the break. So then,
(12:12):
what did you do? Because I feel like you're taking
me down a path where over the course of a year,
you went from your weakest self to your strongest self.
What happened is I finally went and got my things
from his apartment, and I went with two friends. We
swooped up all my things and multiple garbage bags and suitcases.
(12:36):
One of the friends came back with me in a
car and she said to me, you can't be the
first person that he has done this too. And she's
an investigative reporter. Within twenty four hours, she discovered a
previous girlfriend who had been almost a decade before me,
(12:59):
who had an early similar story. It was in that
moment that I realized I was definitely part of a pattern.
The fact that I found out less than twenty four
hours after getting all my things from his place made
me shake, and my reporter friend, she said, I want
(13:20):
you to talk to a lawyer, and she connected me
with Robbie Kaplan, and we talked through various scenarios, a
civil suit, an ethics complaint. But I realized that because
in my situation, which was different from other situations with
(13:42):
perpetrators being outed, I was dealing with somebody who was
still in political power and who was the Attorney General
of New York State. So to enter the legal system
or law enforcement system where the person who I'm accusing
is in charge of that system, it felt like an
(14:04):
incredibly risky and dangerous move. You decided you were still
going to do something, even if you weren't going to
go to legal route. No charges were ever filed at
that point. You were determined to take action in some form.
I was determined to take action so that he couldn't
do to another woman what he did to me and
(14:26):
what he did to this previous girlfriend whom I discovered
and I had a very laser focused objective, which is
to warn other women and prevent him from harming other women.
In my particular instance, because of who my abuser was
and how long his pattern had been going on, and
(14:49):
how long it had been enabled by other people in power,
I felt that the court of public opinion was going
to be my best route for ending the cycle of
violence that he had been perpetrating for a long time.
On the day that Ronan Pharaoh's story broke about Harvey
(15:10):
Weinstein in The New Yorker, so this was subsequent to
the story that Megan Tuey and Jodi canterbroke in the
New York Times on that day. This was in early October.
Eric reached out to me by email, and I knew
in that moment, with great clarity, that he knew he
(15:34):
had done something very wrong. He was in the center
of it. As a hero. He became a key figure
in the Me Too movement. And I remember the moment
that that story broke. Suddenly I knew that my story
was somehow going to become part of this reckoning that
(15:57):
Me Too brought about. Did you want it to be
part of it? I didn't want it to be part
of it. I was so focused on healing and recovery
at that point. But then as Eric became more and
more public about being an ally of the Me Too movement,
he was filing legal cases against Harvey Weinstein. I submitted
(16:21):
myself to the process of investigative journalism after I spoke
with David Remnick of The New Yorker, and then Jane
Mayer was assigned to the story, and then Ronan Pharaoh
also became a reporter on the story. Did you fear
that he could hurt you, whether it was physically or publicly.
(16:45):
I mean, the power and influence he had, especially at
that time, cannot be overstated. This is why I say
America is getting out an abusive relationship. It's like we're
so conditioned to we're ship false profits because they're in
positions of power, or because they're very talented people, and
(17:05):
they're very damaging for society. And I knew very deeply
that one cannot be a champion of women publicly and
abuse them privately. And the political outcome was extraordinary, which
was that New York has its first female and black
(17:29):
Attorney General in Leticia Chains. So the transformation of the
political landscape. That was not an intention, but it was
something that made me realize how important it is to
share our truths because they might result in outcomes that
(17:50):
really do improve. You know, behind every perpetrator there is
usually an enabler, and sadly, many of those enablers are women.
In some cases, their own power is entangled with the
power of this abusive man. In some cases, this abusive
man is their conduit to power. So there were multiple
(18:13):
women I know their names. I'm not going to say
them now. I don't want them coming after me who
are very powerful, who were trying to discredit the New
Yorker story, and who were trying to discredit me behind
the scenes in the months after it came out. Once
the story came out, did you hear from him or
his team after the story came out? Immediately, Governor Cuomo
(18:35):
announced that there would be a special prosecutor put on
the case, and I never heard from Eric Schneiderman again.
The investigation kicked in immediately. The outcome was that the
bar was too high for their to be criminal charges,
But the special prosecutor made a statement that she believes
(18:56):
the women's stories and also that she was posing new
legislation about this type of abuse, about strangulation and physical
violence without consent, and also Eric Schneiderman himself made a
statement where he apologized for the harm that he had
(19:16):
inflicted and that he was in rehab and getting help.
It was extraordinary that you had the strength to leave.
There's this bizarre attachment between being a victim and feeling
shame around it. Did you feel that and did that
change over time? Because as you're speaking, I can sort
of feel your power building. I didn't set out to
(19:38):
write a thriller, which many people have described it as.
I wrote what happened, But I'm glad when I hear
that response because it was a scary time and it
was a roller coaster of a time. I'm hopeful that
a lot of men read the book, and I hope
that high school students read the book. One in four
women and one in ten men will experience some form
(19:59):
of sexual violence during their lifespan, and many of those
experienced that violence before they turn eighteen. So there needs
to be increased education and awareness and also increased legislation
so that, like what had happened in my case, that
there are repercussions for this type of harm m After
(20:34):
an investigation, charges were not filed against Schneiderman. The Nassau
County District Attorney said at the time she believed the women,
but legal issues, including statutes of limitations, stopped them from
prosecuting the former attorney general. After that decision, Mr Schneiderman
released a statement, writing, in part quote, I recognize that
District Attorney sing us his decision not to prosecute does
(20:58):
not mean I have done nothing wrong. I accept full
responsibility for my conduct in my relationships with my accusers
and for the impact I had on them. After spending
time in a rehab facility, I am committed to a
lifelong path of recovery and making amends to those I
have harmed. I apologize for any and all pain that
(21:18):
I have caused, and I apologize to the people of
the state of New York for disappointing them after they
put their trust in me. On this podcast, we like
to leave you with something to think about. And something
Tanya left me thinking about was this. The Me Too
movement shined a spotlight on workplace abuse and abuse by
many powerful men, famous men, but as Tanya noted, victims,
(21:42):
they can be anyone often violence happens in one's own
home or with a committed partner, and the stigma surrounding
this kind of violence, this kind of abuse, it exists
in a big way. Many women don't feel like they
can share their story or escape the bad situation. There
Many outsiders don't consider it a prison. We don't understand
(22:05):
the paralysis. Oftentimes victims blame themselves for getting into those
relationships to begin with. So does there need to be
a me too? Part two are reckoning on intimate violence,
a close look at what a victim actually looks like,
and a shift in what we think acceptable behavior is
(22:25):
because all of this could hopefully ultimately help us create
a world where women are a whole lot safer. I'm
Stephanie Rule and you're listening to Modern Rules, a podcast
from NBC Think, MSNBC and I Heart Radio. This podcast
is hosted by Me Stephanie Rule. Mike Beet and Katrina
(22:46):
Norvell are executive producers. Meredith Bennett Smith is Senior editor
for NBC Think and our editorial lead. The podcast is
engineered and edited by Josh Fisher. Additional production support provided
by Charles Herman, Rachel Rosenbaum, and warn Win and special
thanks to Katherine kim Are, Global head of Digital News
right here at NBC News and MSNBC. For more thought
(23:07):
provoking analysis, visit NBC news dot com slash thank
A quick note to our listeners, this episode contains discussions
of abuse and sexual assault. At times, the details are
graphic and they're hard to listen to, but the story
it's an important one to hear. He was a progressive,
liberal hero. He was also seen publicly as a champion
(00:20):
of women. So what was especially hypocritical and shocking and
gas lighting was the behavior that he sought to legislate against,
was the type of behavior that he inflicted on his
partners in private. And because he was a very powerful politician,
(00:42):
he was the top law enforcement officer in the state
of New York, and he was in the national spotlight
at the time that I was with him. Who knew
what he would do if I told others about what
I was experiencing. But this is why I feel like
somehow the universe intended for me to have my path
(01:02):
intersect with Eric Schneiderman and then end a pattern of
violence with his intimate partners that had been going on
for a very long time with many people knowing about it.
In The New Yorker published a story that would take
down one of the most powerful men in New York.
(01:22):
The man was Eric Schneiderman. At the time he was
the state's attorney general, someone who stood up to Trump
and for women's rights, or so we thought. What many
didn't know was that behind closed doors he allegedly did
the opposite verbally, emotionally, and physically. He allegedly abused multiple women,
women that on the surface it would appear he loved.
(01:46):
One of those women was Tanya Silveratnum. She met Schneiderman
at the Democratic National Convention in and was instantly charmed,
but very quickly, she says, the relationship began to shift.
I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor, NBC News Senior correspondent, and
This is Modern Rules, a podcast from NBC Think and
(02:06):
I Heart Radio. Tanya says that she got caught in
a situation that too many women find themselves in. Strong, smart,
successful women drawn to successful men, and then suddenly trapped,
unable to escape. So what pushed her to get out
(02:27):
of this relationship and share her story with the world.
She writes about that in her new book, Assume Nothing.
Tanya is here today to share her story and for that,
I'm grateful, Tanya. Thank you, Thank you, Stephanie. If you
can sort of take us back, tell us about your experience.
(02:48):
How this relationship even began. It started beautifully when he
first came up to me and started asking questions. It
turned out that we had both gone to Harvard, we
both had studied Chinese, we both had spent time in China.
We were also both interested in spirituality and meditation. I mean,
it was a nerdy flirtation, but also the fact that
(03:09):
he was a politician who meditated was intriguing to me.
And then it started just as a normal dating relationship.
We met in two thousand sixteen at the Democratic National Convention.
When he first approached me, it felt too good to
be true. He was so adoring and complimentary and supportive,
(03:31):
and it started like a fairy tale. But then the
darkness started to seep in as time went by, the
controlling behavior isolating me, the abusive language, the criticism, and
then the physical violence started to emerge in the sexual context.
(03:55):
And so when the abuse started emerging, yes, I was
living with him. And because of the turbulent times after
the election, after the former president took office, Eric Schneiderman
became the leader of the Democratic attorneys generals around the
country who were standing up to Trump. The national spotlight
(04:18):
was on Eric Schneiderman more than ever before, and at
the time that it was happening, I thought the abuse
was specific to me, as so many victims do. But
then I realized, through word of mouth and through friends,
that I was not the first, and I realized that
I wouldn't be the last. I am so grateful that
(04:41):
you wrote this book, that you're telling this story. You
said that at first, domestic violence didn't look like what
you expected it to explain that when it first happened,
it happened in the blink of an eye. It happens
at night, when it's dark, when you're naked. But then
(05:01):
over time the slaps became harder, and the abusive language
in the sexual context also became more dark, the slave terminology,
criticizing my skin, my scars. I have scars that run
up and down my torso from surgery. I began to
(05:22):
feel like I was in hell. But it was still
at that time hard for me to know how to
navigate it. I never thought that I would be one
of those women who got caught up in an abusive relationship.
I had never been in one before. As a child,
I grew up witnessing horrific domestic violence, and I stood
up to my own father. The domestic violence that I
(05:45):
experienced as an adult looked different. He would slap me hard,
he would try to choke me, and it happened only
during the sexual context, the physical violence. But the common
threat between what I witnessed as a child and as
an adult was the course of control, was the making
(06:09):
me always feel like I was less than. But part
of why you stay is that there's the yo yo
effect where sometimes you're made to feel like you are
making mistakes all the time. Other times you're made to
feel like you are the greatest thing that has happened
to your abusive partner. It takes a series of steps
(06:33):
to break even fear swimming down, and it happens with
that entrapment in isolation and the gas lighting and the
coercive control that by the time the physical violence emerges,
it's like you're not yourself. And when I started to
open up to friends and two experts, I realized that
(06:58):
what I went through was an experience that millions of
women and men share, and that I should not be ashamed.
People often don't understand the idea of being trapped, especially
when it's someone who on their own is successful? Is
educated you right in the book that you want to
shift the perception of what a victim looks like. So
(07:22):
what does the victim look like? Victim looks like all
of us. And the more that victims and survivors and
thrivers share their stories, the more we can chip away
at the conditioning that normalizes the cycle of violence that
we are forced to accept from the time that we
are born. You know, we are conditioned to think that
(07:44):
if a boy teases us in the playground, that he
likes us, and that's wrong. So the book kind of
reconditions our notions of masculinity. And I really hope that
men read the book. You know, the narrative, the thriller
draws the reader in and then the appendix provides the
(08:06):
reader with resources to stop and spot and prevent intimate
partner violence. In you telling this story, you're reliving your trauma. Right,
many times we're told you experience something traumatic and you
move on. And it was Alexandria Occacio Cortes and talking
about the January six attack, saying, someone who's a victim
(08:28):
faces that trauma over and over. You're putting yourself in
a position where you're facing that trauma every day that
you work on writing this book, that you talk about it,
how hard is that? Writing the book was painful and emotional,
and I was so grateful when Alexandria Calcio Cortes shared
(08:49):
her story of assault. It resonated for millions of people.
We have to chip away at the patriarchy and white supremacy,
which is very much intertwined with why violence is so normalized.
But even though the writing was painful, ultimately it's full
(09:10):
of hope because I do feel like by sharing our stories,
we begin to open doors that didn't exist before for
us to heal. When you knew you wanted to get
out of this relationship, how did you start making those motions.
It's hard when you are in an abusive relationship to
(09:32):
see a way out, and in my case, it was
especially hard to see a way out because I was
with a very powerful man. But I vividly remember the
conversation I had with a friend when I told her
that things were not going so well and she just
started asking questions. And I feel like that's something that
(09:54):
everyone can do if they suspect that a friend or
loved one is in an abusive RelA sationship is asked
questions that elicit answers, so the more questions she asked
led to more answers. And then she asked, does he
hit you? How hard was it for you to answer that?
(10:15):
Because once you said yes, you couldn't take it back. Yes,
and that was the first time I couldn't take it back.
She is like my sister, one of my closest friends.
Because she asked me a question, I was not going
to lie to her. I did not plan to tell
her that he hit me. I just planned to tell
her that I was going through a hard time. But
(10:37):
because she asked me the question and I answered yes,
I just said yes, and she said mm hmm, and
she said, tany, I want you to talk to somebody,
and she connected me with a domestic violence expert. And
after speaking with that domestic violence expert, there was no
going back. She said, I just couldn't ever see him
(11:01):
or be with him again. And I felt fortunate that
I had a great support network and I had work,
and also I had my financial independence. I think a
lot of reason why women stay in abusive relationships is
because they are financially dependent on the man. Whereas I
had friends who were telling me get out, leave drift,
(11:23):
don't think about him. And the domestic violence expert also
said to me, Tanya, you think that you're the only
one that has happened to and that the abuse was
specific to you because he customized it so well, the
way he criticized my scars, my hair, my breasts. She said,
you are probably part of a pattern. But then a
(11:43):
cosmic thing happened, which is, right after he and I
parted ways, the Harvey Weinstein story broke and the me
too movement began. We'll be back after the break. So then,
(12:12):
what did you do? Because I feel like you're taking
me down a path where over the course of a year,
you went from your weakest self to your strongest self.
What happened is I finally went and got my things
from his apartment, and I went with two friends. We
swooped up all my things and multiple garbage bags and suitcases.
(12:36):
One of the friends came back with me in a
car and she said to me, you can't be the
first person that he has done this too. And she's
an investigative reporter. Within twenty four hours, she discovered a
previous girlfriend who had been almost a decade before me,
(12:59):
who had an early similar story. It was in that
moment that I realized I was definitely part of a pattern.
The fact that I found out less than twenty four
hours after getting all my things from his place made
me shake, and my reporter friend, she said, I want
(13:20):
you to talk to a lawyer, and she connected me
with Robbie Kaplan, and we talked through various scenarios, a
civil suit, an ethics complaint. But I realized that because
in my situation, which was different from other situations with
(13:42):
perpetrators being outed, I was dealing with somebody who was
still in political power and who was the Attorney General
of New York State. So to enter the legal system
or law enforcement system where the person who I'm accusing
is in charge of that system, it felt like an
(14:04):
incredibly risky and dangerous move. You decided you were still
going to do something, even if you weren't going to
go to legal route. No charges were ever filed at
that point. You were determined to take action in some form.
I was determined to take action so that he couldn't
do to another woman what he did to me and
(14:26):
what he did to this previous girlfriend whom I discovered
and I had a very laser focused objective, which is
to warn other women and prevent him from harming other women.
In my particular instance, because of who my abuser was
and how long his pattern had been going on, and
(14:49):
how long it had been enabled by other people in power,
I felt that the court of public opinion was going
to be my best route for ending the cycle of
violence that he had been perpetrating for a long time.
On the day that Ronan Pharaoh's story broke about Harvey
(15:10):
Weinstein in The New Yorker, so this was subsequent to
the story that Megan Tuey and Jodi canterbroke in the
New York Times on that day. This was in early October.
Eric reached out to me by email, and I knew
in that moment, with great clarity, that he knew he
(15:34):
had done something very wrong. He was in the center
of it. As a hero. He became a key figure
in the Me Too movement. And I remember the moment
that that story broke. Suddenly I knew that my story
was somehow going to become part of this reckoning that
(15:57):
Me Too brought about. Did you want it to be
part of it? I didn't want it to be part
of it. I was so focused on healing and recovery
at that point. But then as Eric became more and
more public about being an ally of the Me Too movement,
he was filing legal cases against Harvey Weinstein. I submitted
(16:21):
myself to the process of investigative journalism after I spoke
with David Remnick of The New Yorker, and then Jane
Mayer was assigned to the story, and then Ronan Pharaoh
also became a reporter on the story. Did you fear
that he could hurt you, whether it was physically or publicly.
(16:45):
I mean, the power and influence he had, especially at
that time, cannot be overstated. This is why I say
America is getting out an abusive relationship. It's like we're
so conditioned to we're ship false profits because they're in
positions of power, or because they're very talented people, and
(17:05):
they're very damaging for society. And I knew very deeply
that one cannot be a champion of women publicly and
abuse them privately. And the political outcome was extraordinary, which
was that New York has its first female and black
(17:29):
Attorney General in Leticia Chains. So the transformation of the
political landscape. That was not an intention, but it was
something that made me realize how important it is to
share our truths because they might result in outcomes that
(17:50):
really do improve. You know, behind every perpetrator there is
usually an enabler, and sadly, many of those enablers are women.
In some cases, their own power is entangled with the
power of this abusive man. In some cases, this abusive
man is their conduit to power. So there were multiple
(18:13):
women I know their names. I'm not going to say
them now. I don't want them coming after me who
are very powerful, who were trying to discredit the New
Yorker story, and who were trying to discredit me behind
the scenes in the months after it came out. Once
the story came out, did you hear from him or
his team after the story came out? Immediately, Governor Cuomo
(18:35):
announced that there would be a special prosecutor put on
the case, and I never heard from Eric Schneiderman again.
The investigation kicked in immediately. The outcome was that the
bar was too high for their to be criminal charges,
But the special prosecutor made a statement that she believes
(18:56):
the women's stories and also that she was posing new
legislation about this type of abuse, about strangulation and physical
violence without consent, and also Eric Schneiderman himself made a
statement where he apologized for the harm that he had
(19:16):
inflicted and that he was in rehab and getting help.
It was extraordinary that you had the strength to leave.
There's this bizarre attachment between being a victim and feeling
shame around it. Did you feel that and did that
change over time? Because as you're speaking, I can sort
of feel your power building. I didn't set out to
(19:38):
write a thriller, which many people have described it as.
I wrote what happened, But I'm glad when I hear
that response because it was a scary time and it
was a roller coaster of a time. I'm hopeful that
a lot of men read the book, and I hope
that high school students read the book. One in four
women and one in ten men will experience some form
(19:59):
of sexual violence during their lifespan, and many of those
experienced that violence before they turn eighteen. So there needs
to be increased education and awareness and also increased legislation
so that, like what had happened in my case, that
there are repercussions for this type of harm m After
(20:34):
an investigation, charges were not filed against Schneiderman. The Nassau
County District Attorney said at the time she believed the women,
but legal issues, including statutes of limitations, stopped them from
prosecuting the former attorney general. After that decision, Mr Schneiderman
released a statement, writing, in part quote, I recognize that
District Attorney sing us his decision not to prosecute does
(20:58):
not mean I have done nothing wrong. I accept full
responsibility for my conduct in my relationships with my accusers
and for the impact I had on them. After spending
time in a rehab facility, I am committed to a
lifelong path of recovery and making amends to those I
have harmed. I apologize for any and all pain that
(21:18):
I have caused, and I apologize to the people of
the state of New York for disappointing them after they
put their trust in me. On this podcast, we like
to leave you with something to think about. And something
Tanya left me thinking about was this. The Me Too
movement shined a spotlight on workplace abuse and abuse by
many powerful men, famous men, but as Tanya noted, victims,
(21:42):
they can be anyone often violence happens in one's own
home or with a committed partner, and the stigma surrounding
this kind of violence, this kind of abuse, it exists
in a big way. Many women don't feel like they
can share their story or escape the bad situation. There
Many outsiders don't consider it a prison. We don't understand
(22:05):
the paralysis. Oftentimes victims blame themselves for getting into those
relationships to begin with. So does there need to be
a me too? Part two are reckoning on intimate violence,
a close look at what a victim actually looks like,
and a shift in what we think acceptable behavior is
(22:25):
because all of this could hopefully ultimately help us create
a world where women are a whole lot safer. I'm
Stephanie Rule and you're listening to Modern Rules, a podcast
from NBC Think, MSNBC and I Heart Radio. This podcast
is hosted by Me Stephanie Rule. Mike Beet and Katrina
(22:46):
Norvell are executive producers. Meredith Bennett Smith is Senior editor
for NBC Think and our editorial lead. The podcast is
engineered and edited by Josh Fisher. Additional production support provided
by Charles Herman, Rachel Rosenbaum, and warn Win and special
thanks to Katherine kim Are, Global head of Digital News
right here at NBC News and MSNBC. For more thought
(23:07):
provoking analysis, visit NBC news dot com slash thank
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