90210 star AnnaLynne McCord was at the Somaly Mam Foundation’s Life is Love Gala helping to raise funds for the organization. “The Somaly Mam Foundation is a nonprofit organization committed to ending modern slavery and empowering its survivors as part of the solution. Human trafficking, a multi-billion dollar industry, is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world.” The organization was founded by founded by Cambodian human-rights activist Somaly Mam.
During the gala AnnaLynne got on stage to tell the crowd they did not raise enough money for the organization she then went on to recount her personal story, she said,
“I was raped. I was abused as a child. This is so important to me,” she said. “I was suicidal. I cut my arms up. I wanted to die. I had a bottle of pills in a hotel, and I was ready to end it all, and something, I don’t know what, led me to Somaly Mam. So I can stand here tonight and ask you, ‘Is there five dollars that you don’t need? . . . Five dollars you can give to this woman who saved my life?’ ”
AnnaLynne became so emotional she started to sob and begged the crowd, which included Katie Couric, Ron Livingston and Dylan McDermott to donate more money. Her pitch was a bit unorthodoxed, but it raised an additional $35,000 for the organization.
This is not the first time that AnnaLynne has revealed what she went through. At another event for the same organization last year she told the attendees, “I had a very similar experience to what these girls go through 20 times a night. It happened to me once by somebody that I knew, and it is a very interesting thing to feel that you do not have the voice to say ‘no’ . . . I did not know how to say, ‘I don’t want this. Please do not do this to me.’ ”
