Lucy Hale Shares Her Own #MeToo Moment, Tells ‘Haute Living’ That ‘It’s Happened To Me Too’

She played Aria Montgomery on Freeform’s teen drama series Pretty Little Liars for seven years, and now Lucy Hale is letting her fans know that she’s had a #MeToo moment as well. The beautiful young actress opened up about what happened to Haute Living for their cover story on her. She downplayed the severity of what she experienced, believing that many in Los Angeles have gone through things that were much worse.

“I’ve experienced stuff on the small side, but assault is assault,” she maintains. “I think there are a lot of people who have been intoxicated and taken advantage of. It’s happened to me and people I know. It’s very common. Luckily, I’ve been unscathed; nothing’s hurt me too badly.” Yet Hale had alluded to a sexual assault incident previously in Twitter and Instagram posts in January. Both posts have since been deleted, according to the Huffington Post.

“I never understood sexual assault until tonight,” she wrote. “I always sympathized, but never truly felt the pain of it until right now. My dignity and pride was broken. I am completely at a loss for words. I feel for anyone that has felt this pain that I feel right now. But I promise. I will not let a moment go by that I don’t try to make a difference.” The L.A. scene for young actresses can get dicey at times, but despite all of that, Hale doesn’t want to leave. The town has been good to her in many other ways. Even so, she recently had a break-in at her home in Sherman Oaks, which is located in the San Fernando Valley, and many of her prized possessions were stolen.

“I’ve had super-dark times here, but it’s been a place that’s always had my back. I know it sounds weird, but I’ve always been at ease here. For me, this is it. I think I’ll always live here. I feel like I can be myself here.” That is probably because L.A. is very different from her religious upbringing in the South, which always made Hale feel slightly uncomfortable that there were certain mindsets of people there that fit into a certain box. “I always felt like I was outside of that box, but when I got here I thought, ‘Yes! These are my people. They’re so open, and easy and nonjudgmental.’ I love that people are open and accepting to different ways of life here.”