Kara Robinson Chamberlain, Elizabeth Smart.Photo: Amanda Janson; Peter Kramer/NBC/NBC Newswire/NBCUniversal via Getty
In adulthood, years into their independent journeys to recovery, the two women met face to face and quickly connected over their shared experiences.
Chamberlain described how she was drawn to Smart in an interview withOxygen: “I remember the first time I met her and we were talking about why I hadn’t come forward with my story before and I said, ‘You know, there’s this look people get when they hear your story.’ And she said, ‘Oh, I know the look,’ and that was the first moment of being like, ‘You get me, you see me, you see what I’ve been through,'” said Chamberlain, whoseincredible story of survivalwas far less publicized than Smart’s.
In 2019, after participating in an interview with Smart, Chamberlain took part in a 90-minute Lifetime special,Smart Justice: The Jayme Closs Case, with other sisters in survival to lend support to Closs, a Wisconsin teenwho escaped her captorin 2019.
“I sat down on a couch with Elizabeth and five other women who had survived kidnappings and sexual assaults,” Chamberlain tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “And that was the moment that I realized that I really had a bigger purpose. I knew that I could find a reason for what happened. And I always knew that what happened to me was something that happened so that I could help other people.”
She continues: “I was healed on that couch, sitting there talking to those women, in a way that I didn’t even realize I was hurting.”
Young Kara Robinson Chamberlain.Young Elizabeth Smart.Young Kara Robinson Chamberlain.PHOTO: Courtesy Kara Robinson ChamberlainYoung Elizabeth Smart.PHOTO: George Frey/Landov
Young Kara Robinson Chamberlain.Young Elizabeth Smart.
Young Kara Robinson Chamberlain.
Young Elizabeth Smart.
Young Kara Robinson Chamberlain.PHOTO: Courtesy Kara Robinson ChamberlainYoung Elizabeth Smart.PHOTO: George Frey/Landov
Chamberlain teamed up with Smart, whose abduction has been depicted numerous times on screen over the years, to work on a documentary that could do her own story justice.
The final product, calledEscaping Captivity: The Kara Robinson Story, premiered on Oxygen last year, detailing how Chamberlain not only outsmarted her captor — serial killer Richard Evonitz — but used her remarkable memory to help police track him down and stop his reign of terror.
“I want everyone to always have a sense of hope because no one gets through this life without their fair share of struggle and trial and heartbreak, and I think Kara’s story really just brings that ultimate sense of hope,” Smart told Oxygen about the documentary. “I’m so proud of Kara and I’m so proud of everything that she’s doing.”
Smart has long been a household name after the world learned that she’d been used as a sex slave during her nine months of captivity, but her mission toadvocate for missing childrenand be there for survivors in need of a listening ear hasn’t waned, even when her own path to healing has faced obstacles: In 2018,one of her captors was released early, and the next year, she reported that she wassexually assaulted while sleeping on an airplane.
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“If you look at what our statistics say, which is probably a conservative estimate, that one in three women experience sexual assault in their lifetime. I realized that up to maybe more than a third of our population of women are experiencing something. And they may never get the opportunity to sit down and to talk to someone who really understands what they went through,” Chamberlain tells PEOPLE.
“And I thought, if I can do that, if I can bring that to other women in some way, shape or form, that would just be the epitome of my purpose, if I could just help other people,” she says.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go torainn.org.
source: people.com
