Elizabeth Smart: Porn Made My Living Hell Even Worse

Elizabeth Smart was only 14 when she was abducted from her home in Utah, dragged into the mountains at knife point and kept in a remote camp for nine months before she was finally rescued.

Her kidnapping made national news for months.

In a newly released video produced by the anti-porn group Fight the New Drug, Smart explains how her abductor’s obsession with hard-core pornography made her horrific captivity even worse.

“Every time I thought I had hit rock bottom, my captor would find something new to make it worse,” Smart says.

She describes a time when her captor, Brian David Mitchell, “was really excited, really amped up about something and he said, ‘oh, I have something to show you, and you have to look at it, you have to look at it.” The poised 28-year-old Smart says Mitchell then pulled out a copy of a hard-core porn magazine.

He would stare at it and talk about these women and then when he was done, he would turn and look at me and he’d be like, ‘we’re going to do this.’ It just led to him raping me more, more than he already did, which was a lot.

Looking at pornography wasn’t enough. Having sex with his wife after looking at pornography wasn’t enough. And then it led to him going out and kidnapping me. He just always wanted more. I can’t say he would not have gone out and kidnapped me had he not looked at pornography, all I know is that pornography made my living hell worse.

Smart was finally rescued on March 12, 2003 after being featured on America’s Most Wanted. Two couples in Sandy, Utah, 19 miles south of Salt Lake City reported seeing a girl resembling Smart wearing strange robes and in the company of an older man and woman similarly dressed. The police around Utah were used to multiple spottings of Smart but upon seeing the trio they knew almost immediately it was her. At first Smart denied who she was. Cops on the scene said she was terrified and that her “heart was beating so rapidly, you could see it.”

Brian David Mitchell was sentenced to two life terms. His wife and accomplice was given 15 years.

Smart has gone to finish college, get married, have a child, start a foundation and become a public spokesman against pornography and for trafficked women. She is also a commentator about trafficked women on ABC News.