Joan Collins recalls marrying her ex-husband Maxwell Reed after he allegedly raped her

The 90-year-old actress claimed the rape took place when she was 17, but “mentally at the level of 12”

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Joan Collins reflects on her decision to marry Maxwell Reed after he allegedly raped her.

The dynasty The 90-year-old star claimed she was raped by Reed – who died in 1974 aged 55 – when she was a 17-year-old virgin. Collins claimed the incident occurred after the then 31-year-old actor gave her rum and coke in his apartment.

“I was 17, but mentally at the level of 12,” she said The guard. “We didn’t have sex education. I never saw a penis until I was raped, and then I refused to look at it.”

“My mother told me that men only want one thing, and I think she was right,” she added.

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Related: Joan Collins’ life in pictures

Collins — who is promoting her new book, Behind the shoulder pads – married Reed in 1952, “because I come from a generation where if you want to have sex, you get married,” she told the publication.

The actress described the alleged rape in the BBC documentary This is Joan Collins. In the document, she claimed: “The next thing I remember is lying flat on the sofa and he raped me. At the time, my mother would have said I was taken advantage of. Today we call it date rape.”

She also admitted that the couple’s four-year marriage – which ended in 1956 – was born out of “shame”.

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Related: Who is Joan Collins’ husband? All about Percy Gibson

Collins recalls how the split came about, saying it happened after a night at the “terribly fancy nightclub” Les Ambassadeurs in London.

“Max had a habit of being attracted to rich, older men and I was beginning to get a vague idea of ​​what this was about,” she said in the documentary. “Max told me: ‘He’ll pay you £10,000 for a night – and I can even watch.’ I looked at my handsome, hideous husband and started to cry. ‘No way.’ I went home to Mum.”

In her interview with The guard, Collins described in detail how she carried on after her divorce from Reed: “I lived with several men, one after the other. I was a serial monogamist.”

Related topics: Joan Collins talks about ex-husbands and marrying younger men: “Love knows no boundaries”

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“I realized I was unconventional,” she continued. “I thought, ‘There’s nothing wrong with this.’ I lived with Sydney Chaplin, then Arthur Loew Jr., then I had an affair with a married man – it was pure hell.”

In 1963, Collins married British pop star Anthony Newley, with whom she had two children: daughter Tara later that year and son Alexander in 1965. However, the two finally divorced in 1971. Shortly after, Collins married Beatles record producer Ron Kass in 1972 and their daughter Katy was born that same year. They were married until 1983. Collins’ fourth marriage, to Swedish singer Peter Holm, also ended in divorce after they were together from 1985 to 1987.

Collins has been married to producer Percy Gibson for more than two decades. “Percy is the most honorable man I’ve ever met,” she told PEOPLE in March 2002, shortly after the couple married in February of that year.

“I kissed a lot of frogs before I found my prince,” Collins later wrote in her 2011 memoir The world from Joan’s perspective.

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

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