Nikita Hand took on Conor McGregor and a system built to protect the powerful. Her courage highlights how survivors still carry the burden of proof.
There are few words powerful enough to capture what Nikita Hand has been through, and even fewer that could ever do justice to the courage it has taken to keep going.
Nikita didn’t just stand up to the man who raped her. She stood up to a global empire. A man with unthinkable wealth, power, reach. A man who is courted by presidents and paraded on global stages. A man with alleged connections, spin doctors, and all the means in the world to silence her and bury the truth, and still, she stood tall.
Her life was pulled apart. Every aspect of her being, her past, her choices, her character – interrogated, twisted, thrown under the microscope. Her home was broken into. Her family threatened. Her partner stabbed. Her existence threatened for speaking out. For daring to say she deserved justice.
The world watched while the Irish Director of Public Prosecutions chose not to pursue a criminal trial. She was forced instead to take the civil route, a process where she became the one on trial, and when she won, he still refused to take accountability. When he lost his appeal, he was still nowhere to be seen. But Nikita showed up. Again. For herself. For her daughter. For every survivor watching.
You deserve to be believed. You deserve to be heard. You deserve justice.
She stood outside that courthouse, her voice shaking, speaking not just for herself but for every person who has ever experienced sexual violence and been told to stay quiet. She said what so many survivors are still terrified to admit out loud, that we do not live in a world that protects survivors. We live in a world that protects entitlement.
… and entitlement is exactly what this is about.
The entitlement of powerful men who believe they can take what they want – bodies, silence, reputations – and never face consequence. The entitlement of a society that asks survivors to be perfect victims. To be polite. To stay silent. To not be too angry. To not ruin careers, reputations, family names. The entitlement of a legal system still steeped in misogyny, outdated frameworks, and a fear of calling out what is plainly in front of us, violence, abuse, and harm.
What Nikita has endured is unimaginable. She didn’t just fight a legal battle. She fought a cultural war. She carried the weight of public judgment, online abuse, international media, legal loopholes, whispered threats, and a break-in that was violent – and still she kept going.
Every time she spoke, she went back to survivors. She said: You deserve to be believed. You deserve to be heard. You deserve justice.
The very bare minimum, and still, so rarely given.
Even after the verdict, he mocked her online. Harassed. Discredited. The world saw it, and still, too many looked the other way.
France had Gisele Pellicot. Ireland has Nikita Hand.
Let her name be remembered not just as a survivor, but as a torchbearer, a woman who reminded this country of just how much work we still have to do.
Thank you, Nikita. For showing us what bravery looks like. For standing in the fire so that others might one day be spared it.
You have made history. We will not forget.
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