Meryl Streep reveals she was once beaten up so badly that she ‘played dead’

Meryl Streep has revealed she was once attacked so violently she “played dead and waited until the blows stopped”.

The Oscar-winning actress told an audience in New York that she “knew something about real terror” as the experience changed her on a “cellular level”.

Streep, 68, right, was speaking at the Committee to Protect Journalists’ 27th annual International Press Freedom Awards.

She also spoke about an incident in which she witnessed someone else being attacked.

Streep said she “went completely nuts” and chased the man off.

Streep did not reveal any more details about the two incidents, other than to say that singer Cher witnessed the second attack.

Separately, Streep has said a 1979 Time magazine article in which she was reported to have claimed Dustin Hoffman groped her breast is inaccurate.