Padma Lakshmi reveals she was raped as a teen

In an opinion piece published Tuesday by The New York Times, Lakshmi said the alleged incident happened while she was dating a man she met at the Puente Hills Mall in a Los Angeles suburb.

"I worked there after school at the accessories counter at Robinsons-May. He worked at a high-end men's store," she wrote. "He would come in wearing a gray silk suit and flirt with me. He was in college, and I thought he was charming and handsome. He was 23."

She did not identify the man by name in her essay.

Lakshmi wrote that she and the man "were intimate to a point, but he knew that I was a virgin and that I was unsure of when I would be ready to have sex."

"On New Year's Eve, just a few months after we first started dating, he raped me," she wrote.

The model-actress said she was motivated to speak out in the wake of two women accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of inappropriate sexual conduct. Kavanaugh has denied both women's accusations.

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Christine Blasey Ford has spoken out about an alleged drunken assault she says occurred when she and Kavanaugh were teenagers.

A second woman, Deborah Ramirez, told The New Yorker she attended Yale with Kavanaugh and remembers him exposing himself to her at a dormitory party.

Lakshmi noted that President Donald Trump had tweeted that if Ford's allegation were true she would have reported it to authorities.

"But I understand why both women would keep this information to themselves for so many years, without involving the police," Lakshmi wrote. "For years, I did the same thing."

She also detailed the alleged date rape, which she said occurred when she fell asleep in the man's apartment after the pair had attended some New Year's Eve parties.

"Afterward, he said, 'I thought it would hurt less if you were asleep,' " Lakshmi wrote. "Then he drove me home."

She said she didn't tell anyone at the time.

Lakshmi also wrote that she had been molested as a 7-year-old.

"When I was 7 years old, my stepfather's relative touched me between my legs and put my hand on his erect penis," wrote Lakshmi, who also recently tweeted about the incident as part of #WhyIDidntReport. "Shortly after I told my mother and stepfather, they sent me to India for a year to live with my grandparents. The lesson was: If you speak up, you will be cast out."

Lakshmi said she has advised her 8-year-old daughter to speak up if anyone touches her or makes her feel uncomfortable.

"I have nothing to gain by talking about this," Lakshmi wrote. "But we all have a lot to lose if we put a time limit on telling the truth about sexual assault and if we hold on to the codes of silence that for generations have allowed men to hurt women with impunity."

CNN has reached out to reps for Lakshmi for additional comment.