The Powerful Reason Alan Cumming Painted His Fingernail Purple

Broadway and television actor Alan Cumming is lending his voice to a new campaign created by the nation’s leading victim assistance organization that aims to ignite discussion around domestic violence. 

The 51-year-old “Good Wife” and “Cabaret” star joins Dave Navarro, Kyra Sedgwick and a bevy of other celebrities in the above video for Safe Horizon’s #PutTheNailInIt campaign. In the video, which was released to coincide with Domestic Violence Awareness Month, “Today Show” co-host Tamron Hall asks supporters to apply purple nail polish to their left ring fingernail in solidarity with victims of domestic violence.

Brian Pacheco, who is the director of public relations at Safe Horizon, told The Huffington Post that he was particularly proud of Cumming’s participation in the campaign because domestic violence remains a somewhat taboo topic in the LGBT community. Sedgwick, Hall and Navarro have also been outspoken advocates for LGBT rights, he added. 

“So often there is this misconception that abuse in a same-sex relationship is just a fight.  But abuse is different than a fight,” he said. “Domestic violence is one person trying to exert power and control over another person, and it’s dangerous.”

The statistics are indeed staggering. The Center for Disease Control’s 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, which was re-released in 2013 with revised data, found that 43.8 percent of lesbians and 26 percent of gay men said they’d been the victim of rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner. The figures for bisexual men (37.3 percent) and women (61.1 percent) were also disconcerting. 

“The available statistics of abuse in same-sex relationships closely mirror those of heterosexual relationships,” Pacheco said. “And we know that transgender individuals are particularly vulnerable to intimate partner violence, yet some of the less likely to seek services.” 

You can read more about the campaign here. 

Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) for the National Domestic Violence Hotline.