Real Housewives Of Dubai star Chanel Ayan says she was ‘bullied’ for speaking out about her circumcision: ‘I became so depressed’

Chanel Ayan was forced to confront her past during an August 2022 episode. The Real Housewives of Dubai inaugural season. While attending a hypnotherapy session with co-star Sara Al Madani, the model, who grew up on the Kenya-Uganda border, emotionally revealed she had been circumcised age five without his mother’s knowledge. Now, more than two years after the episode aired, Ayan is opening up about the mental struggles she faced after first telling her story.

In a new interview with DECIDER, Ayan admitted that she was “scared” to return to the country. The Real Housewives of Dubai Season 2 because she “suffered from depression” following sharing her experience of female genital mutilation (FGM).

This practice, described by the World Health Organization as “a violation of the human rights of girls and women”, is defined as “the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or any other injury to the female genitalia for unauthorized purposes. -medical reasons.”

Ayan said she was “bullied a lot” for speaking openly about her own experience of FGM, noting: “I understand that because I come from a very closed culture. »

“We’re getting married, we’re 100% Muslim, no one talks about FGM like it’s something bad,” she told us. “I was talking about things I’m not supposed to talk about. So I got a lot of backlash because of that.

She added: “I was so depressed. I didn’t leave my house. I was really in, I would say, the darkest times of my life before we started filming.

Ayan’s father – who she said tried to sell her into marriage when she was 14 – “came home and beat” his sister after her story aired on the show, she said. she declared.

“I sank into the worst depression you could imagine,” Ayan said of how she overcame her past FGM-related trauma. “I mean, I’m African. I didn’t think depression existed. When we were talking about depression, I just thought it was a very Westernized thing. Now I know it exists because I’ve experienced it.

Ayan continued, “I couldn’t stop crying. It was so bad that I would wake my husband up in the middle of the night and say, “I need to talk to you because I’m having really bad thoughts, I need to talk to you.” It’s really hard for me right now.

But with the West African country of The Gambia recently voting in favor of a bill that would overturn the ban on FGM, Ayan knows the time has come to use his platform to raise awareness. public opinion about these atrocities so that other young girls are not forced to endure these atrocities. same trauma.

“I’m literally trying to expose myself, so now I feel like it’s not about me anymore,” she said. “It can’t be about me if African countries bring him back. How can I sleep at night even though I’m in sad times and knowing that this is happening to the children when it shouldn’t be happening? »

She added: “Even if it changes two or three people’s minds, I think I’m getting somewhere… And then I feel like this platform, I mean, I can’t be beautiful all the weather. I must use it for the common good. That’s why my brand is all about helping and all that and you can see it on the show.

The Real Housewives of Dubai Season 2 premieres Sunday, June 2 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo. Starting Tuesday, June 11, the series will move to its regular Tuesday timeslot at 9 p.m. ET/PT.