You’d Better Put Some Ice on That: How I Survived Being Raped by Bill Clinton—Juanita’s Story
This month we are looking at women who survived and are fighting the good fight, starting with this week’s book, You’d Better Put Some Ice on That: How I Survived Being Raped by Bill Clinton—Juanita’s Story by Juanita Broaddrick with Nick Lulli. The accompanying cocktail is The Survivor’s Celebration and it is Brut Champagne, Raspberry Desert Sauce, Chocolate Bitters and Raspberries for Garnish. So, let’s do this.
This book does tell the story, which has been heard many times since Juanita first came forward in 1999 with what happened to her in 1978. But like anyone who has survived horrific trauma, Juanita is much more than this horrible thing that happened to her. And this tells her whole story, not just the moment that Clinton took from her what was not his to take.
So, Juanita was born December 13, 1942, in Arkansas and her childhood was…. chaotic. Her mother was prone to violent mood swings and would take it out on Juanita, her sister, and their father. Their father was the stabilizing influence in the home, and it wasn’t all misery, but it was unstable.
When she graduated high school, she wanted to be a singer, but her dad put the kibosh on that one and instead she went to nursing school, which led her to her career path. She married for the first time to Gary Hickey before graduating from nursing school in 1963 and moving to Russellville, AR for his college. She worked diligently as a surgical nurse until she was offered a job as a director of nursing in Danville, AR, which came with a significant pay increase. This position was with a nursing home and would set her on her lifelong path of geriatric care, which would ultimately culminate in her owning her own business, an elder care facility in Van Buren, AR which would be a top-rated facility and eventually she would expand into a second kinder care facility.
Now, in 1978 Juanita was very much a community leader, and not just from her own business, she was a member of the board of directors of the Arkansas Nursing Home Association, and the Van Buren Women’s League, and Chamber of Commerce. So very much a pillar of the community. And she heard about the Attorney General for the State of Arkansas who was running for governor. Juanita was invited to attend a Crawford County political meeting to sign people up to campaign on Clinton’s behalf.
This was new to Juanita, but she was up for new experiences, so she went. And a month later received a call from campaign headquarters that Clinton would be in Van Buren, and they wanted to know if he could come by the Brownwood Manor nursing home, which was exciting, so of course Juanita said yes, and in March or April 1978 Clinton came by her business. And because he was there campaigning for governor, Juanita told him the difficulties the elder care community was facing. And he was so interested that he asked if she’d be in Little Rock and she was going to be in Little Rock in a few weeks to attend a nursing home seminar, so he said to call when she got to town so they could have a more in-depth conversation about her concerns.
Now, given that he was a politician, courting the vote of an influential member of the community, she really had no reason to believe this was anything other than as advertised: A young political go-getter who saw her as a means to curry more votes. I mean, her nursing home had 100 beds, with full capacity, plus staff, ripple effects of all those people voting and saying they were voting for Clinton, so this does not strike her as odd, and she agrees to call him when she gets to Little Rock.
April 25, 1978, found Juanita in Little Rock and as agreed, she called campaign headquarters planning to meet with Clinton there to continue their discussions about her concerns. Only Clinton was not there, but had left word that if Mrs. Hickey called, give her his apartment number. So yes, he knew she was married. What he did not know was her marriage was on the rocks and Juanita was having an affair with who would be her second husband, David Broaddrick, which whom she was in love.
Clinton said he wouldn’t be back in the office at lunchtime, which is when Juanita initially had time, but asked to meet her at her hotel coffee shop. Which she agreed to. Public place and all. Well, when he got to the hotel, he said it was too busy with the press, and they’d never get to talk, could he just come up to her room. Again, suspecting nothing, Juanita said sure I’ll order coffee, so she ordered room service. And as soon as room service left, he knocked on her door. She later believed this was intentional, so that there would be no witnesses. He wasn’t there 10 minutes when he attacked her.
Her description is…shattering. It’s so clinical and matter of fact, like, the only way she can get through the telling is to keep to just the facts. Whenever she screamed, he’d bite her mouth. That’s where the title of the book comes from. As he left, he noticed the swelling from his bites and told her “You’d better put some ice on that.” Before leaving her shaken and terrified.
And she basically just lay there shaking until her friend who drove to Little Rock with her got back to the hotel and knocked on her door. At which point Juanita just started crying…as one does when one has just been violently raped by an even more pillar-y member of the community.
And she did put ice on it. All the way back home, because…well, who’s gonna believe her? This is the perpetual reason rape victims don’t come forward. Was it my fault? Did I encourage this? I invited him to my hotel room, was that an invitation to sex? All these thoughts are what she’s thinking and so no, she didn’t report. Because a woman alone in a hotel room inviting a man in in the 1970’s…well, an unfortunate number of law enforcement TODAY would see that as an invitation. In the 1970’s? Yeah, Clinton new what he was doing by inviting himself to her room, and making sure the room service didn’t see him.
A month or so after that, the Clinton’s were back in Van Buren campaigning and Juanita had an…interesting…moment with Hillary. Who pointedly thanked her for EVERYTHING she had done for Bill. And Juanita 100% took that as a threat. Which makes me wonder just how far back the Clinton Kill Machine urban legend goes. We learned last week it’s at least as old as 1987. But perhaps as far as 1978? Juanita was definitely scared and so kept her head down.
Once she was back home, she worked to put herself back together. Her marriage did collapse, and she married David Broaddrick, who was a great stepfather to her son Kevin, and while her ex was…. a complete ass…he married a good woman, so Kevin had some stability no matter which home he was in.
She ultimately would buy out her partners in the elder care facility and become the sole owner. And then…Paula Jones came forward in 1994 with her allegation of harassment in 1991. And Juanita believed her immediately, just based on her own interactions with Clinton. I would speculate that the only reason Paula wasn’t attacked the way Juanita was, is because people knew she was in the hotel room with Clinton. I think it was a highway patrolman or campaign aide who had allegedly told Paula that Clinton wanted to meet with her in private. So unlike with Juanita, who no one knew for sure Clinton was meeting with her, Paula had witnesses.
When Juanita saw how Paula was being dragged, she decided it was still not time to come forward with her story. But…well, small town, people do talk. And her friend Norma was not the only one she had told. Shortly after the incident, another friend approached her regarding rumors. The friend was talking about rumors of Juanita and David. Juanita thought the friend was talking about her rape and admitted it happened. So, the cat was quietly out of the bag, but…well, people did not talk openly about things like that in the 1970’s.
And while Juanita would eventually be interviewed for various news stations and reporters, and is and was highly credible, nothing ever happened to Clinton. Obviously. But she has been vocally outspoken about Hillary’s blatant hypocrisy with believe all women, which is how Juanita launched to internet fame. And came to write this book.
The rape itself was just one thing…not an insignificant thing, don’t get me wrong, but Juanita is so much more than this one incident. Even before the rape she had built herself into someone in her community, a business leader, and she retained that sense of identity after the rape as well. She IS a survivor, and while this awful thing happened to her, it never defined her.
This book was very short, but excellent for its brevity. You get a full sense of who Juanita is as a person, and her retelling of the attack is devastating to read through. And adds to her credibility, as her story has never changed. In any detail. Ever.
Some people might take this to mean she IS lying because the details are always the same, like maybe she memorized her story. Really, people who are fishing for belief will change their story to try and make it seem more credible, especially to their audience. Inconsistencies prove the lie, not consistency. And I have no doubt she was attacked and raped exactly as she reports. And survived to be so much more than a victim.
