Dame Joan Collins is the latest celebrity to appear on Louis Theroux Interviews this week, and she’s got a lot of life to cover – starting with her alleged abusive ex-husband Maxwell Reed.
The former Dynasty star has previously revealed that she married the actor after he drugged and raped her, when she was just 17. Shockingly, she has admitted that she ‘hadn’t seen a penis’ until that moment.
She accused the Helen of Troy actor of stealing her virginity, and putting her in the awful position of having to marry him. Here’s what she’s said about her alleged abusive first husband.
Who was Joan Collins’ first husband Maxwell Reed?
Dame Joan Collins – who looks INCREDIBLE for her age – married her first husband, Northern Irish actor Maxwell Reed, in 1952. The marriage lasted four years before she divorced him in 1956.
Joan has previously alleged that Maxwell Reed drugged and raped her when she was just 17. She made the allegations in the BBC documentary This is Joan Collins, as well as in her ITV interview with Piers Morgan’s Life Stories. In September 2023, Joan discussed the claims with The Guardian.
She revealed that at the age of 17, still a virgin, she went on a date with the 31-year-old actor Maxwell Reed. Back in his apartment, she claims he raped her after spiking her rum and Coke. She said: “I was 17, but I was the equivalent mentally of 12. We did not have sex education. I never saw a penis until I got raped and then I refused to look at it.”
Astonishingly, Joan Collins went on to marry Maxwell Reed. She explained it was due to her sense of shame: “Yes, because I come from a generation where if you’re going to have sex, you get married.”
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