The Birth of a Nation

Gabrielle Union's Nate Parker pain

In the film Union portrays Esther, a slave who suffers a brutal rape. The actress writes in the Los Angeles Times of being raped at gunpoint 24 years ago in the storeroom of the Payless shoe store where she worked.

Nate Parker 'devastated' over rape case

Parker was charged with rape while a student at Penn State in 1999. He was acquitted, and the accuser committed suicide in 2012 at the age of 30.

Late Tuesday, Parker took to Facebook to express his feelings "from my heart and not filtered through a third party gaze."