Fran Drescher: A Survivor of Tragedies

Television star Fran Drescher has been ridiculed for claiming that she and her ex-husband were once abducted by aliens when they were teenagers.

Peter and I both saw [aliens] before we knew each other, doing the same thing, driving on the road with our dads, she told The Huffington Post.

We were both in junior high. A few years later, we met, and we realized that we had the same experience. I think that somehow we were programmed to meet. We both have this scar. It's the exact same scar on the exact same spot.

While Drescher may be putting everyone on, or could possibly be delusionary, it is well worth remembering that she has suffered some terrible traumas in her life (which may explain some of her eccentric behavior).

In 1985, well before she became a television star, she was raped by an armed robber who broke into the apartment she shared with her husband, while another man ransacked their home. Drescher and another girl were sexually assaulted at gunpoint, while her husband was tied up and forced to watch the horror.

The two men were eventually caught, with the rapist receiving two life sentences.

Reportedly, it took Drescher many years to recover from the ordeal.

In her autobiography, Enter Whining, Drescher wrote: “The front door was broken down, and two men with guns were running toward us. I let out a scream that was more like a primal roar, when every nuance of your being is focused on one thing.”

In 2002, she explained to CNN why she was reluctant to discuss her nightmarish encounter for years.

“I wasn't able to get in touch with my pain. Back in those days, I didn't want to burden other people with my pain. And so I sort of tucked it away and picked myself up, and dusted myself off and just marched on,” she said.

Fifteen years after the rape, in 2000, Drescher was diagnosed with uterine cancer and had to undergo an immediate radical hysterectomy to treat the illness.