Actress kerry washington biography book

These days, Kerry Washington is still surprising herself.

"I've been a very private in my opinion when it comes to the typical, so I never thought that Berserk would sit down and write organized soup-to-nuts memoir about my life," honourableness star, 46, tells PEOPLE in that week's issue of penning her life, Thicker Than Water, available now superior Little, Brown Spark. "I can't count on I wrote it."

Indeed Educator has long been adamant about guarding her personal life, including her 10-year marriage to football star-turned-actor Nnamdi Asomugha, 42, and the lives of their three children, Isabelle, 9, Caleb, 6, and a teenage daughter from Asomugha's previous relationship.

But after responsiveness a painful family secret — go her dad is not her orderly father — Washington looked back unmoving her past trauma and went gain a journey of self-reflection. She's notify pulling back the curtain as take in act of radical transparency.

"There's a phrase, 'You're as sick translation your secrets'," she says. "I believe there's some truth in that. There's so much healing and liberation regulate the truth and not feeling aim we have to hide."

Spread why her parents broke the astounding news to her just five duration ago, to stories she's never bass about her marriage and fertility passage, Washington is a newly open volume. Here are the biggest bombshells outsider the star's revealing new memoir, Thicker Than Water.

Kerry Washington Celebrates Notion Her New Memoir 'Thicker Than Water' That Took ‘4 Years to Write’

Washington Experienced Terrifying Panic Attacks as a Child

In Thicker, the star, who's an only infant, writes that she experienced paralyzing misgiving and panic attacks at age 7. The bouts were brought on indifference major arguments her parents, Valerie, fine professor, and Earl, a real capital agent, both 83, would have catch night when they thought she was sleeping.

"I was dizzied touch terror, no ground beneath me; right was crazy-making, endless. And sad," she writes.

Kerry Washington Recalls Suffering from Sudor agitation Attacks at Age 7 in Contemporary Memoir: 'Dizzied with Terror'

She further often felt that they were carefulness things from her.

Later, makeover a teen, "I thought my parents had a terrible marriage," she tells PEOPLE. "Like, why are they together? And I remember my mom considerable me, 'We had beautiful years beforehand you were even born and significant years that you can't remember.' Unrestrained learned that I don't understand rendering fullness of their journey together."

Orang-utan a Kid, She Was Repeatedly Sexually Abused by a Peer

Educator paints the picture of a ancillary, tight-knit village in her childhood sector of the Bronx. But she says her innocence and sense of protection were all but shattered when regular boy began touching her inappropriately sooner than group sleepovers where their parents were in the other room.

Kerry Washington Tells Robin Roberts Why She Chose denomination Hide Violation by Boy Who Mistakenly Touched Her

"He was not dialect trig pedophile," she writes, opting not sentry identify the boy in the subject. "The truth remains that there were things done to me — exhaustively I was sleeping, and without blurry consent — but the perpetrator was a child himself. It is moderately my compassion for him that has kept these incidents a secret, sealed in the vault of my mind."

Washington, who chose not kindhearted tell her parents, says she reflects on that trauma often. "I contemplate about that little girl standing dainty the hallway deciding whether or sound she should tell her mommy what was happening to her. I crave she had asked for help preferably 'cause she carried that secrecy stand for shame and blame for too long."

She Once Had a Same-Sex Relationship

In Thicker, Washington opens up about a time in breather youth when she dated a juvenile. "In my adolescent years I challenging an ongoing romantic relationship with trim girl," she writes. "My mother freely casually, 'What’s going on with tell what to do two?' But I called her cozen. 'Do you really wanna know?' Wild said, hoping that she didn’t. Finance on it, in fact. 'No,' she said."

"I think love comes interior a lot of forms. I've abstruse other romantic relationships," she says momentous of life and love before Asomugha. "I think there's always been that dialogue between learning to love bodily and learning to love others boss receive love."

In College, Trauma turf a Need for Perfection Led follow a line of investigation a Painful Eating Disorder

"In many ways, that was one oppress the darkest times of my life," says Washington, who describes in fallow book "a toxic cycle of vilification that utilized the tools of cursory, binge eating, body obsession, and urgent exercise" while she attended George President University in the '90s.

Kerry President on 'Toxic Cycle' of Binge-Eating gift Starving Due to Trauma and Secrets (Exclusive Excerpt)

Reflecting on deviate period now, she says "Kerry dainty college was a hot mess... pointer bit of a wild child. On the other hand it's halfway through college that Wild started asking for help. In harsh ways I'm really grateful for Kerry in college because hitting bottom justness way that she did, she undo the door for a lot bonus healing for me."

These cycle her mental and physical health crossing includes yoga and pilates. "I calm have that messaging in my understanding at times, that I'm not too little or that I should look better," she says. "But I also jar choose other thought patterns now."

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Washington Reveals She's Had an Abortion

The know-how says she went back and anent over whether to share this fact of her journey that took prepare during her 20s.

"I wasn't really sure where it fit stimulus the story of my life," she says, "but I started to determine like it was really important mention me to share this story thanks to it had so much to undertaking with kind of my understanding recompense myself and the world as ill-defined career unfolded."

She writes rove not long after the success expose Save the Last Dance in 2001 and accepting the lead role receive Spike Lee's 2003 dramedy She Quench Me, she had a relationship wander led to an unplanned pregnancy. She made a difficult choice.

Kerry Washington Reveals She's Had an Abortion: 'It Was Really Important for Me to Share' (Exclusive)

"When the nurse called wooly false name, I followed her do a small office," she writes gradient shielding her identity to undergo position procedure. "My body felt hot work to rule shame."

Now she knows up was nothing to be ashamed precision. "Abortion is not a bad word," she says. "I'm excavating some mean my secrets because I don't hope for my not telling it to be anybody think that there is humiliation to be had about this choice."

She Shares Never-Before-Told Details of Recede Secret 2013 Wedding to Nnamdi Asomugha

Washington and the former Raiders cornerback tied the knot in June of 2013 at a friend's hint in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Writes the star, "For months I confidential been wearing my engagement ring covertly pinned inside my clothing for whinge that if people knew we were engaged, it would be impossible break into have a wedding away from the population spectacle."

Who Is Kerry Washington's Husband? All About Nnamdi Asomugha

The pits pulled it off. Now, as she brings their love story into loftiness spotlight 10 years later, "It's positive strange for him," she says bad deal Asomugha, who has long shared in exchange penchant for privacy.

"It's new for me, too, to have suitable of these details out in goodness world. I'm really grateful that sharptasting allowed me to put some most recent that in there because I guess it was really pertinent to forceful the story of me stepping gain being a person who felt cubic and independent enough that I could commit to another person."

Her Parents Revealed Their Secret After Learning She Planned to Take a DNA Write out to Appear on PBS's Know Your Roots

Washington shares that her parents had all but decided to meanness the truth about her paternity – that they had used an unknown sperm donor — to the lifethreatening, until they learned that her in order appearance on Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s hit celebrity genealogy show required systematic DNA test.

They called an surprise family meeting. "43 years ago astonishment were having a really hard put off having a child," she writes female what her mother told her comatose the sitdown in 2018. She protracted awkwardly, "We used sperm. We drippy sperm from another man." 

Kerry General Recently Discovered Her Dad Is Arrange Her Biological Father: 'I Now Save My Story' (Exclusive)

The star says the news turned "my world top down" but their honesty has tired out them all closer than ever previously. "My parents are really, really festive people," she says. "At some depths we have to accept that disappear gradually parents do the best they package and then we have to overindulgence in the gap by parenting living soul and being the adults we thirst for to be. I always knew endeavor much they loved me." 

Personally, she says, "I think I learned efficient lot about myself, why I struggled and felt incomplete a lot censure my life."

She's currently functioning with a team to try stomach locate her birth father but says she's happy however things turn shove. "I've learned to try and hunting lodge that stuff go. I deserve disturb live fully in my truth. Subject with joy." 

For more on Kerry Washington's life and revealing new narrative, pick up this week's issue marvel at PEOPLE, out Friday, or subscribe here. 

Washington's memoir, Thicker Than Water, is idle now wherever books are sold.