LOS ANGELES (AP) – It didn’t take the Ray Rice elevator video to get Kerry Washington talking about domestic violence.
In fact, it was the day before news outlets were looping security-camera images of the NFL running back punching out his then-fiancé Janay Palmer, that the Scandal actress was filming a public service announcement (PSA) about a rarely discussed component of domestic violence known a financial abuse.
“For many, many of those cases – 98 per cent of those cases – the financial abuse is what keeps a woman trapped,” Washington said. “Not being able to control your finances, destroying a woman’s credit, jeopardising her job.”
In her PSA, Washington says “one in four women will be a victim of domestic violence. Finances are almost always a weapon of choice”.
Washington rarely talks to reporters about anything outside of her work.
She keeps her private life so private that many in Hollywood were surprised by the news in June 2013 that she had married former NFL cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, with whom Washington welcomed their first child, daughter Isabelle Amarachi, in April.
Washington said she’s taken guidance in her new role as working mother from her own mom, as well as another working mother: Scandal creator Shonda Rhimes.
“I have really amazing role models and she-roes who have found ways to balance work and home life, and so I am just looking to them and trying to live in the amazing abundance of blessings that I have in my life right now,” Washington said.
Scandal, for which Washington has earned two Emmy nominations, returns for a fourth season September 25, and Washington promised season-three cliff-hangers would be quickly addressed. When last we saw her character, Capitol Hill fixer Olivia Pope, she was leaving on a jet plane for points unknown.
“I can tell you (that) you will find out where that plane is going,” Washington teased at last month’s Emmy Awards.
“And I can tell you there’s going to be a lot of (actress Darby Stanchfield’s character) Abby this season. I’ve heard it’s been called, ‘The Year of Abby’.”
