HBO powerhouse Sheila Nevins has been making the rounds promoting her new book You Don’t Look Your Age… and Other Fairy Tales. In it, she talks about getting ahead in the cut-throat, male-dominated world of television, as well as growing older in a youth-obsessed society.
Earlier this week, she spoke to HuffPost in collaboration with MAKERS about the horror of getting an illegal abortion in her 20s and how it was the awakening of her feminist identity.
“I was 25 and I went to some hotel or office building in Washington, DC. I paid $300 cash,” Nevins recalled.
“Some man that I’d heard of through some girlfriends of mine was a doctor in some country and he’d come here and it was going to be fast and simple. He gave me a little envelope with antibiotics, told me to get on the table. And I always remember… with one hand he was drinking Tab [soda] and with the other hand he was, ya know.”
Nevins said she vividly remembers the two other women who were also getting abortions that day, who were crying outside of the room where she got the illegal procedure done.
“[Later the doctor] walked in and said, ‘Stay an hour, you’ll stop bleeding. You all killed your babies.’ And he walked out and left us there. It was so horrible.”
Nevins, now 78, said she got very sick after the abortion, developing a serious infection that forced her to check into a New York City hospital.
“I had to tell everybody what had happened ― and it was illegal. l knew that when I left that hospital that I was never going to be the same person again.”
Watch below.
Nevis, of course, has gone on to become one of the most powerful woman in the entertainment industry, singlehandedly reviving the documentary genre, and working on productions that have been recognized with over 65 Primetime Emmy Awards, 46 Peabody Awards,and 26 Academy Awards. Nevis, herself has won 32 individual Primetime Emmy Awards, more than any other person.
Get her new book here.
