NEWS'Gossip Girl' Actress Chanel Banks Releases First Statement Since Her Shocking Disappearance: 'I'm Finally Free'
Chanel Banks guest starred on 'Gossip Girl.'
Actress Chanel Banks has been confirmed safe and uninjured following her family's desperate pleas for help amid her two-week disappearance.
On Wednesday, November 13, the Gossip Girl guest star shared a statement explaining her whereabouts and setting the record straight on her strained relationships with allegedly abusive members of her family.
Chanel Banks' family claimed she'd been missing since October 30.
"My name is Chanel Banks. I’m a 36-year-old American nobody, and for my entire life I have been silently carrying the pain of the ritual…abuse, manipulation, and outright endless torment I’ve endured continuously since I was a defenseless baby, at the hands of my own so-called family, whom are all so very 'concerned' about my current whereabouts" she said.
"I have met with the Police and verified that not only am I okay, but I’m finally free," she added.
Banks claimed she told her husband six days prior that she wanted to get baptized by one of her "favorite pastors" Robert Clancy. He later drove her to the airport for a week-long trip. While this was a chance for her to follow her religious convictions, she said she "also saw it as an opportunity to escape my cage."
"God said: I’m going to give you some money and I was shocked when it appeared just like He said," she continued. "Then He said: I want you to move. So I made my Exodus and took my Freedom Ride first class (on Spirit air no less) to the Promise Land."
Chanel Banks said she wanted 'freedom' for everyone 'suffering in silence.'
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As OK! previously reported, her cousin Danielle-Tori Singh recently told the press they had a very close relationship and rarely went two days without speaking. She even launched a GoFundMe page to pay for private investigator fees to help find Banks.
However, according to Banks, she had not been in contact with Danielle for 15 years. The actress further claimed her family refused to allow her to make her own decisions, and when she made attempts to escape the alleged abuse, they would "falsify official government documents relaying lies concerning my mental health."
"I found out hours before leaving that not only my mother's family, but also my dear husband's, were vehemently pursuing a CONSERVATORSHIP ie complete legal control to silence me," she said. "But I shall not be moved — ever. There will be no more lies. Everything in the darkness must come to light."
Chanel Banks claimed her family had been 'vehemently pursuing' a conservatorship over her.
Elsewhere in her statement, Banks alleged that for "36 crushing years" she's had to "endure the most abominable abuses." Now, she said she's telling her story in hopes of finding "freedom" for herself and for "everyone suffering in silence."
"I want to come out so that people like me won’t be ashamed anymore. I want Justice. I’m asking God to help me get justice," she revealed. "Reach out. Help the cause, help me. I will never allow myself to be silenced ever again — least of all by my abusers.
True Crime News reported Banks' statement.
