Dame Meera Syal has revealed she was sexually abused in her mid-20s by an older actor who promised her he could boost her career.
Speaking about the traumatic attack – which took place in the 1980s – the Goodness Gracious Me star, 65, explained for the first time how she failed to report the attack because the thought of putting her parents through a criminal trial was too much to bear.
Speak with The Sunday Times MagazineSyal explained how she was singing in a jazz band in a Covent Garden restaurant at the time and applying for jobs as a waitress after her post-graduate stage acting jobs dried up.
She was about to leave London and return to the West Midlands when an Asian actor she knew invited her to a party at his home in London.
Syal and the magazine provided no further details about her attacker in the report, other than to say he was “an older Asian man, almost the same age as her father.”
When she arrived at the house, there was only one other person who left shortly after, leaving a confused Syal alone with the man.
Dame Meera Syal has revealed she was sexually abused in her mid-20s by an older actor who promised her he could boost her career
Fearing that it would be rude to leave, she stayed for dinner and admitted that she felt safe because he was an older Asian man.
The magazine then reports: ‘They were talking immediately after dinner when he attacked her and tried to rape her. Syal froze in fear, but managed to clamp her legs together; he continued and abused her anyway.”
Syal left afterwards and chose not to report the crime and did not tell anyone.
“This is the first time I’m talking about this publicly,” Syal says now.
‘It completely changed my life and the direction of my career. I could have given up, but instead I found a group of South Asian writers.”
“They encouraged me to write more, they found a place to live, they healed me and woke me up politically.”
She says the attack eventually led her to write the strong female characters featured in the BBC2 sketch show Goodness Gracious Me, which ran from 1998-2001.
The show, which transitioned from a BBC Radio 4 series, was her career breakthrough. She joined the writing team and was also cast as several characters in the hugely successful sketch comedy show.
Syal explained how at the time of the attack she was singing in a jazz band in a Covent Garden restaurant and applying for jobs as a waitress after her jobs as a stage actor dried up (depicted in the 1987 play Serious Money)
Syal has now written her first non-fiction book, with Vigilauntie: A Memoir – Innit? will be released on September 3.
The book delves into her family, heritage and the influential women in her life.
About the autobiography, the writer and actress explained, “I have sat at so many tables with friends where the conversations have been enlightening, joyful, heartbreaking and sometimes life-changing.
‘And I walked away thinking: I really should have written that down.’
After a few years away from the TV screen, with her final film role being an appearance in the BBC drama The Split in 2022, she is currently rehearsing for The Children, which opens at the Lyric Hammersmith on Wednesday 2 September.
