‘Birth of a Nation’s’ Gabrielle Union Addresses Nate Parker Rape Case Controversy: ‘I Cannot Take These Allegations Lightly’

Nate Parker continues to face intense scrutiny for his involvement in a 1999 college rape trial. This time, it’s coming from Gabrielle Union, one of the stars in his highly anticipated film The Birth of a Nation.

“As important and ground-breaking as this film is, I cannot take these allegations lightly,” Union wrote in an essay for The Los Angeles Times.

Union, 43, addressed the case from the point of view of a rape survivor.

“Twenty-four years ago I was raped at gunpoint in the cold, dark backroom of the Payless shoe store where I was then working,” Union said. “Two years ago I signed on to a brilliant script called The Birth of a Nation, to play a woman who was raped. One month ago I was sent a story about Nate Parker, the very talented writer, director and star of this film. Seventeen years ago Nate Parker was accused and acquitted of sexual assault. Four years ago the woman who accused him committed suicide.”

In 1999, Parker and his then-classmate Jean Celestin were accused of sexual assault by an 18-year-old female classmate at Penn State. Parker was acquitted in a 2001 trial, while Celestin – who is listed as a collaborator on Birth of a Nation – was initially found guilty but whose conviction was later overturned on an appeal.

“Since Nate Parker’s story was revealed to me, I have found myself in a state of stomach-churning confusion,” Union writes. “I took this role because I related to the experience … I knew I could walk out of our movie and speak to the audience about what it feels like to be a survivor.”

Last week, Parker apologized for his “insensitive” response to the controversy in an interview with Ebony magazine.

“I gotta be able to look at it and say, well, you know, I have engaged in hyper-male culture,” Parker said about the case. “And I’m learning about it, and I’m learning how I can change and help young boys and young men change.”

In her essay, Union touched on how she and husband Dwyane Wade are raising “brilliant, handsome, talented young black men.”

“My husband and I stress the importance of their having to walk an even straighter line than their white counterparts,” Union said. “ A lesson that is heartbreaking and infuriating, but mandatory in the world we live in … But recently I’ve become aware that we must speak to our children about boundaries between the sexes. And what it means to not be a danger to someone else.”

Union added that she read all 700 pages of Parker’s trial transcript, and admitted, “I still don’t actually know. Nor does anyone who was not in that room.”

But Union maintained that Birth of a Nation can hopefully help start a conversation about and bring an end to sexual violence.

“I took part in this film to talk about sexual violence,” she said. “To talk about this stain that lives on in our psyches. I know these conversations are uncomfortable and difficult and painful. But they are necessary.”