Amanda Peterson, the star of the 1987 romantic comedy Can’t Buy Me Love, was raped was she was 15, her mother said. The actress died in July from an accidental morphine overdose.
Sylvia Peterson was on the syndicated daytime talk show The Doctors Monday and said that the incident “affected her forever,” reports ABC News.
Peterson was only 16 when she made Can’t Buy Me Love, which co-starred future Grey’s Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey. Although she made infrequent appearances in TV shows and movies after making it, she never made another project that was as successful.
“At the height of Mandy's career, she suffered a very serious trauma. She had been raped,” Sylvia said. “She just felt so ashamed. She didn't want people to know.”
Her father, James Peterson, said that Peterson “became more defensive, less trusting,” adding that, “Some of the sparkle was gone.”
“I think for her to carry the secret, this burden of the assault, must have just been overwhelming,” her sister, Anne-Marie, said.
Peterson died at her Greely, Colorado home over the July 4 weekend and was only 43. The Weld County Coroner determined that she had six times the normal amount of pain medication in her system.
Following her death, her parents spoke to the media and said that she had been doing well in the last years of her life.
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