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Marisol Nichols is going above and beyond the call of duty.
Most people know her as the actress who plays Camila Mendes‘ mom on Riverdale, but there are individuals out there who recognize her as the woman who put them behind bars.
According to an interview with Marie Claire, Marisol and a team of investigators have worked diligently to arrest hundreds of sex traffickers for the past five years. Whether it’s by going undercover as a victim, acting as a pimp or spreading awareness for the cause, Nichols says she strives to catch these “disgusting” predators before they can hurt a young child.
She was partly inspired to take on this cause because of her own history with sexual abuse and drugs. Marisol recalls being raped when she was 11-years-old and states it was her “worst nightmare.”
“It changed the entire trajectory of my life in a day,” she shares.
From that point on, Marisol says she started using “a lot” of drugs as a way to cope with not just the rape, but also the discovery that her father wasn’t her biological father. He had adopted her and raised her as his own, along with her half-brothers.
Marisol continued on this path and was “just trying to survive,” when she stumbled into stardom.
But landing roles in films like Vegas Vacation did nothing to help Marisol get through her personal turmoil.
That is, until she became a Scientologist. “Scientology is what saved my freaking ass. I’d probably be dead,” she insists, despite the church’s infamy.
Nichols acknowledges that the church of Scientology stands accused of many crimes, including child abuse, human trafficking and forced labor. However, as an active member Marisol believes these allegations were “completely fabricated.”
Of course, many on social media claim her affiliation with the church delegitimizes her authority as an advocate for child abuse, but Marisol remains staunch in her support for Scientology. As far as she’s concerned, the critics “don’t have any idea what [they] are talking about.”
“We’re not the church known for this sort of thing. Where’s the police charges? Where’s the evidence?” she claims.
When she’s not defending the controversial religious organization or participating in a sting operation, the Riverdale star works with her non-profit Foundation for a Slavery Free World, which she founded in 2014 in order to spread awareness about the sex trafficking world. She tells the outlet, “If good people don’t know about it, it will keep happening, because good people are the only ones who will do anything about it.”