Fran Drescher Was Always Ahead of Her Time

But while Drescher’s career was skyrocketing, her personal life was struggling. Her marriage was crumbling and she says she lost about 30 pounds from stress during the show’s run. “When I see myself so thin [on The Nanny], I remember how unhappy I was. There was a time where I was really burning my candle at both ends, going between rehearsals, tapings, writing sessions, and press sessions.”

There was also an even more painful and private trauma brewing beneath the surface: Drescher has been raped at gunpoint some years prior, and with her newfound celebrity, the press had just gotten wind of her attack. “There was a whole segment on one of those tabloid-esque magazine TV shows that made it seem like the incident had just happened,” Drescher explains. “That [Hollywood gossip] show actually went to the jail and tried to speak with the rapist and fortunately he didn’t want to. I kind of had a post traumatic stress break after. It was an extremely difficult time for me. All the fear from the experience came up, all the pain, tears. I had to start all over again,” she says.

Yet Drescher, an eternal optimist, claims this dark period only made her stronger—and made her a symbol of hope for other women. When she published her 2002 memoir, she addressed her attack. “When I wrote my book [Cancer Schmancer], I talked about the rape, and you’d be amazed that when I went on my book tour, how many women asked me to autograph that chapter. It was something I realize had a very powerful impact on women who were all kinds of victims. Spousal abuse, rape, emotional abuse, you name it. It definitely helped people to see me blossom, knowing that 'If that happened to her and look at her now, then maybe I can climb out of the depths of despair,'” Drescher said.

Now she’s just glad that society is making a collective effort to expose abuse, and that more women are also standing up and saying "Me too." “Look, I’m not the only one, [it happens to] one out of three women, that’s the facts. So the more we talk about it, the better off we are. The less there’s a stigma or a curse that you feel like you’re damaged goods or did something wrong. It’s very important we bring it out of the closet.”