Gabrielle Union has revealed on ABC's "The View" that at the age of 19, she was raped at gunpoint.

The "Being Mary Jane" star says after the ordeal, she made it a point not to let the incident consume her life. "I got sick of people letting me off the hook," said the 41-year-old. "Being a victim is so comfortable. It makes you lazy," reveals E! Online.

While her family and friends helped her, she personally despised everyone rallying behind her over something that's negative. "When something catastrophic happens in life everyone rallies around you but it's not for something positive and I hated that," reports the Daily Mail.

Gabrielle believes that it's important not to have a victim's mentality: "I hated the cloak of victimhood," she continued. "I realized they were going to allow me to be a victim, and not succeed and not achieve my goals."

As a summer job, Union worked at a California branch of Payless Shoe Source, where the incident occurred. Gabrielle recognizes that since it happened in an affluent area, the under-worked local police department and rape crisis center failed to respond to her quickly. The star talks about how her strength and "power" really came back after she successfully sued Payless Shoe Source for negligence.

It was later discovered that her attacker was actually a former employee of another Payless store which he had not only robbed but also raped another employee. Union's attacker was criminally charged and sentenced to 33 years in prison, reports E! Online.

Gabrielle shares that she has decided to "embrace being a survivor because that's who I am," she also reveals that her upbringing and being raised as an independent woman allowed her to stand "on my own two feet, and that's the road I opted to take."

Gabrielle was recently engaged to NBA basketball star Dwyane Wade, 33, after dating for 4 years. She posted a photo of her engagement ring on Instagram to share the news with the world.

She warns parents to look into the criminal history of businesses before allowing their children to seek employment at any organization.