As Kara DioGuardi prepares to release her juicy memoir, A Helluva High Note, next week, the public probably assumes that the book's biggest bombshells will all be "American Idol"-related. But it turns out that the former "Idol" judge has survived ordeals a helluva lot harder than getting the cold shoulder from Simon Cowell or having Kris Allen drop "No Boundaries" from his tour setlist. In the memoir, Kara shockingly reveals that she was molested when she was 11 years old by a teenage boy, and that she was later date-raped by a famous music producer and sexually harassed by a major recording artist (both of whom she refuses to name).
According to E! Online, Kara says of her childhood molestation trauma: "On one particular day, [a family friend's son] took me into the back shed of his house and put his hands all over my breasts and vagina. I remember freezing and not knowing what to do."
Kara also says that she was raped in 2000 by a "fairly known producer." She writes: "[He] was on top of me, pumping, sweating, and speaking to me in Spanish, not a word of which I could understand." Kara explains that she never reported the incident for fear of jeopardizing her then-burgeoning career.
She also reveals that she was once sexually harassed by a "hugely successful artist" on what she believed was a three-day songwriting trip, which instead "consisted of watching Russian porn, scavenging around the kitchen for food [and] leering at two strippers...as they performed sex acts in the living room." Kara continued to work with the artist at first, because "I wasn't gonna let this bastard deter me from doing the job," but later wisely cut ties with him after he forced her to touch his private parts.
Now that Kara is extremely successful, with many smash songs to her credit and a new reality show, "Platinum Hit," premiering on Bravo on May 30, I wonder why she still felt the need to withhold the names of the producer and musician who allegedly violated her. Was this for legal reasons, or because they're so prominent and powerful that they are still in a position hurt her career? We may never know, but one thing is certain: Kara DioGuardi is even tougher than I gave her credit for.
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