“The worst night of my life”.
Aziz Ansari has responded to allegations of sexual misconduct by a woman that he dated last year.
Ansari said in a statement that he apologised last year when she told him about her discomfort during a sexual encounter in his apartment. Ansari said that he believed the sexual encounter was consensual and that “everything did seem okay to me.”
Ansari added that he has “took her words to heart and responded privately” to these allegations.
Here’s his statement in full:
The woman, who went by the name Grace, shared her story with Babe.net where she revealed that she met the actor at the 2017 Emmy Awards after-party and later went on a date with him.
The 23-year-old said Ansari repeatedly pulled her hand towards his genitals despite her giving verbal and non-verbal signals to indicate she was not consenting.
She said that Ansari “kept doing it after I moved it away! She said she remembers him asking again and again, ‘Where do you want me to f**k you?’ Throughout the course of the night, she says she used verbal and non-verbal cues to indicate how unhappy she was.”
Grace says that things escalated when they returned to Ansari’s apartment, saying he quickly began touching her.
‘In a second, his hand was on my breast.’ Then he was undressing her, then he undressed himself. She remembers feeling uncomfortable at how quickly things escalated,” read her account.
“When Ansari told her he was going to grab a condom within minutes of their first kiss, Grace voiced her hesitation explicitly. ‘I said something like, ‘Whoa, let’s relax for a sec, let’s chill.’ She says he then resumed kissing her, briefly performed oral sex on her, and asked her to do the same thing to him. She did, but not for long. Grace went on to share screenshots of the text conversation she and Ansari had the following day after he told her he had “fun meeting you last night”.
The screenshots show Grace telling the 34-year-old how the interaction made her uncomfortable saying he ignored her clear cues. “Last night might’ve been fun for you, it wasn’t for me,” read the text.
“I want to take this moment to make you aware of this behaviour and how uneasy it made me. Really think back to last night. You may have said ‘It’s OK, only fun if we’re both enjoying it, let’s just chill’ but within moments of that your fingers were down my throat. You were putting my hand on your d**k continuously. I want to make sure you’re aware so maybe the next girls doesn’t have to cry on the ride home.”
Ansari reportedly replied apologising, saying: I’m so sorry to hear this. All I can say is, it would never be my intention to make you or anyone feel the way you described. Clearly I misread things in the moment and I’m truly sorry.”
