Elizabeth Smart, the Utah woman who made headlines nearly 20 years ago after she was raped while being held captive by kidnappers for nine months, went for a little rest and relaxation with her husband in Cancun.
‘Last week Matthew (Gilmour) and I snuck away to Mexico for a little break and it was glorious!’ the 33-year-old Smart wrote on her Instagram account just weeks after she revealed that she is opening up to her family about her infamous abduction.
‘I could go on about importance of self care and relationship building but ultimately I think the pictures speak for themselves!!
‘Also not pictured masks and sanitizer played heavily on our little adventure.’
In one photo, Smart is seen putting her hand around her husband’s arm as they pose for a photograph in front of El Castillo, which is a Mayan pyramid also known as the Temple of Kukulcan in Tinum Municipality near Cancun.
Elizabeth Smart, the Utah woman who made headlines nearly 20 years ago after she was raped while being held captive by a kidnapper for nine months before she was found alive, went for a little rest and relaxation with her husband in Cancun
In another photo, the couple looks relaxed as they pose in their bathing suits inside a bathing area located in a cave
The third photo Smart posted on Wednesday shows her lounging in her bathing suit on the beach
‘Last week Matthew (Gilmour) and I snuck away to Mexico for a little break and it was glorious!’ the 33-year-old Smart wrote on her Instagram account. ‘I could go on about importance of self care and relationship building but ultimately I think the pictures speak for themselves!!’
In another photo, the couple looks relaxed as they pose in their bathing suits inside a bathing area located in a cave.
The third photo Smart posted on Wednesday shows her lounging in her bathing suit on the beach.
Smart has kept up her public profile in recent weeks as she seeks to raise public awareness of sexual assault.
In January, she appeared as Miss Mothon the Fox network’s The Masked Dancer reality show competition.
Days later, she gave an interview to the cable gossip channel E! News in which she revealed she has recently started to talk to her three children about her harrowing ordeal.
Smart also said that her traumatic experience has made her a hyper-vigilant and cautious parent who frequently checks up on her children.
Smart was 14 years old when she was kidnapped at knifepoint in 2002 and held in captivity for nine months. It was not until years later that Smart’s parents, Ed and Lois Smart (right), learned the extent of the sexual abuse she had endured
Smart’s captor, Brian Mitchell (left), was convicted in 2010 and is serving a life sentence. His wife, Wanda Barzee (right), is out of prison
Since her kidnapping and rescue in 2002, Smart has reinvented herself as an author, advocate against sexual violence, podcast host, and now reality TV star.
She and her husband, Matthew Gilmour, have three children together: five-year-old Chloe, three-year-old James and two-year-old Olivia.
Smart told E! News that in recent months, her eldest daughter has started to ask questions about her past.
‘Occasionally, I’m doing a presentation or I’m on a Zoom call, and she doesn’t understand. So she asked me, “Why?” And as her questions come up, that is how I gauge how much to tell my daughter,’ Smart explained.
The married mom-of-three kidnapping survivor said she has been striving to answer Chloe’s questions truthfully, but in an age-appropriate way.
‘With all my children, really, I certainly never want to hide what happened in the past, because every single one of us has a past,’ she explained.
Smart was just 14 years old when she was kidnapped at knifepoint from her Salt Lake City home in June 2002 by handyman Brian David Mitchell.
In January, Smart opened up about parenting after being revealed as Miss Moth on the Fox reality competition The Masked Dancer (pictured)
Smart, 33, was on the cast of the show, which is a spinoff of the long-running Masked Singer
Smart’s identity was revealed on January 13, after she was defeated by other contestants
She was rescued nine months later in March 2003 after two witnesses recognized her abductors.
In 2009, Smart testified in court how she was drugged, tied to a tree and raped daily – as often as four times a day.
Mitchell was convicted of federal kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines to engage in sexual activity charges in 2010 and is serving a life sentence in prison.
In 2010, Mitchell’s wife, Wanda Barzee, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and in a plea deal was given credit for the seven years she already served.
She was released from prison in September 2018 and now lives in the same town as Smart, despite Smart’s pleas to the parole board not to set her free.
Smart told E! News that her kidnapping has informed her approach to parenting.
‘I’m probably more into helicopter parents than I would have imagined,’ she told the entertainment news outlet. ‘And it also makes me think that I’ll never regret checking on my children or spending that extra time to look after them or watch them.
‘I’ll never regret it. I might regret not spending time with them or not looking after them for that moment. So, I think it’s probably made me a more conscious parent.’
When asked what inspired her to take part in the Masked Dancer, Smart, who admitted that she ‘can’t dance to save my life,’ explained that she did it to honor her fearless late grandmother.
In December, Smart revealed she never talked about the abuse she suffered during her nine-month captivity because she was ashamed and embarrassed until she learned of her captor’s charges and became enraged
‘I remember one day my dad came to me and started discussing the charges Brian Mitchell was going to be charged with, and I felt anger, because of all the charges he was faced with none of them included the worst things he did to me,’ she said in an Instagram post Monday
Smart, pictured with her husband and children, said she is a ‘helicopter parent’ who is hyper-vigilant and conscious of her surroundings
‘I’m pretty sure she wasn’t scared of anything,’ Elizabeth says. ‘And I thought, I want to be able to look back on my life and feel the same way. For all of the heavy, serious things that I’ve done, I want to be able to look back and laugh.’
Smart summed up her experience on the dancing competition as ‘the most terrifying thing I have ever voluntarily done.’
In December, she revealed in a candid Instagram post that for years she felt ashamed and embarrassed and didn’t talk about the abuse she endured.
But she finally spoke out when she learned her captor wasn’t going to be charged for all the suffering he inflicted on her.
‘In my mind what had happened was something that I hated and never wanted to acknowledge so I just avoided thinking/talking about it,’ Smart said.
‘But I remember one day my dad came to me and started discussing the charges Brian Mitchell was going to be charged with, and I felt anger, because of all the charges he was faced with none of them included the worst things he did to me,’ she added.
‘It was ultimately in that moment that I stopped caring and worrying about the shame and embarrassment that I felt,’ she said.
Since her ordeal, Smart has become an advocate against child abduction and sexual abuse and launched the Elizabeth Smart Foundation in 2011 to raise awareness and fight against sexual violence.
