Fran Drescher's home invasion rape ordeal: 'They broke the door down'

Fran Drescher and her ex-husband Peter open up about that harrowing night in 1985.

The Nanny star Fran Drescher and her ex-husband Peter Marc Jacobson have opened up about a horrific home invasion they endured more than 30 years ago that saw Drescher raped at gunpoint.

The pair reflected on the terrifying ordeal in a new two-part interview with Studio 10, in which they also talked about their time together making The Nanny, which they co-created in 1993.

But eight years before that sitcom turned Drescher into a household name, she and Jacobson were victims of a violent robbery when two armed men broke into their Los Angeles apartment.

Fran Drescher and her ex-husband Peter open up about that harrowing night in 1985.

One man ransacked the home while the other raped Drescher and a female friend, who was also at their home at the time.

Jacobson was attacked, tied up and forced to witness the entire ordeal.

"The whole rape experience was so surreal, because people who talk about having guns in the house and things like that ... it would not have helped. It could have been used against us. There was no time, unless you're going to walk around with a gun pointed 24 hours a day," Jacobson told Studio 10.

"We were home, having dinner with a friend. They broke the door down - it was locked. You try to live, you try to get through it alive. The police said, 'Whatever you did, you did it right, because you're alive'.

Her rapist, who was on parole at the time of the crime, was sent back to prison and given two life sentences.

The attack happened in January 1985, but it wasn't until 1996 that Drescher would go public with her ordeal, detailing the home invasion and her recovery in a chapter of her memoir Enter Whining. She said she was heartened to realise she'd touched a chord with other sexual assault survivors.

"There were women that asked me to sign that particular chapter. I didn't write the book until I was already famous, like 10 years later. I thought, if people can see where I went from that low point to where I am now, maybe it'll help and inspire other women - and men for that matter - who have been sexually assaulted, to move on. To feel your pain, then try and pick up the pieces and put yourself back up together. You'll never be the same, but whatever that is, then forge forward with that. Turn your pain into purpose, which is what I always do."

The torment of that night also forced Jacobson to seek counselling - which eventually led him to another realisation: he was in denial about his sexuality.

"That was when you started to get in touch with your orientation," Drescher said, her trademark laugh.

"I can laugh about it now."

The pair divorced in 1999, the same year The Nanny finished after six seasons.

The following year, Drescher was diagnosed with uterine cancer.

"That I think is a poetic correlation, because I really didn't deal with my pain with the rape for many, many, many years. When you don't do that, I ended up with a gynecological cancer. It ends up being very poetic in where the body decides to break down and create disease," she said.

It was the cancer diagnosis that made the pair reconnect after a difficult divorce. They even created another sitcom around their unusual relationship, Happily Divorced, which ran for two seasons from 2011.

"There's always silver linings to even the darkest cloud: Us becoming friends again and moving into this new relationship," said Drescher.