Will & Grace star Debra Messing has revealed she felt “betrayed” by Hollywood after the October 7 attacks.
The award-winning actress said she was alienated and “abandoned” by showbusiness friends for speaking out about the massacre and raising awareness of the hostages’ plight.
Messing admitted: "I expected the entire globe to mourn with us", especially her "Hollywood community".
"My entire career I have been part of this very liberal, inclusive community, and so I thought, 'All right, I'm just gonna be one little voice in this cacophonous call for empathy and legitimacy for the Jewish people'," she said.
However, she recalled: "No one stepped forward. I remember just being so shocked and, of course, angry."
Messing, who is Jewish, was "stunned" that friends in the industry did not come out and call for the release of the 250 hostages taken by Hamas, despite the fact that some were "mothers and babies and children".
“I was so stunned. How can anyone defend not speaking out for these hostages? I was disgusted, honestly.”
Speaking at a Sydney event hosted by Jewish Communal Appeal (JCA), she told Sky News Australia's Sharri Markson: "I feel like my life is everything before October 7 and then everything after. I will never be that person again."
She added: "I felt betrayed, I felt abandoned, I felt maligned. I felt like I was completely alone.
"I lost so many friends, and I know so many Jews who have had the same experience."
The reaction to her vocal support for fellow Jews was "the hardest thing that I've ever experienced in my life,” she said.
"I felt incredibly depressed for a period of time," she said, adding: "I really needed help from a therapist to help me talk it out and to figure out why this is happening.”
Recalling her reaction to the October 7 attacks, in which 1,200 were killed, she said: "The shock was instant, the trauma was instant, the fear was instant and the grief was instant."
American Messing, who grew up in Rhode Island, told how she experienced antisemitism from a young age, being called names at school, adding: "My grandfather visited us when I was about seven and we woke up and a swastika was painted on his car."
She fought back against antisemitism at the start of her career, asking for her character in Will & Grace to be Jewish.
"I recognised that while we were trying to change hearts and minds around the gay community that there was an opportunity to change hearts and minds around Jews and the Jewish community.
"I felt like it was a responsibility to do so."
Despite the attacks on Jews, past and present, she feels the community “is more united than it has ever been".
"As Jews, we need to be louder and prouder because they want to silence us and they want to scare us and they want us to feel shame," she said.
"What gives me hope is that we’re still here after 3000 years, and we’re here to bring light into the dark, and we are living in a darker time, but we are still showing our light, and we will get through this together."
In the interview, Messing also spoke about the Bondi Beach massacre las year, in which 15 people were killed, insisting: “It felt like it was October 7th again".
Speaking directly to Australians, she added: “"We all pray for your healing.”
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