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US comedian and filmmaker Aziz Ansari has responded to allegations he pressured a woman into sexual activity on a date last year, saying the encounter was "completely consensual".
- Grace says she told Ansari she didn't want to feel "forced"
- She says Ansari didn't notice she wasn't interested
- Ansari says he was "surprised and concerned" to hear Grace was uncomfortable
The woman's account was published on the website Babe, using the pseudonym "Grace". The woman said she approached Ansari at the Emmy Awards after-party in 2017.
She alleged that she went consensually to his apartment after a date but Ansari was overly aggressive in pushing her for sex.
"Most of my discomfort was expressed in me pulling away and mumbling. I know that my hand stopped moving at some points. I stopped moving my lips and turned cold," she told Babe.
The next day, Grace said she sent him a text message: "I just want to take this moment to make you aware of [your] behaviour and how uneasy it made me."
She said he responded with: "Clearly, I misread things in the moment and I'm truly sorry."
Ansari's name trended on Twitter after the article was published on Saturday (US time). His Master of None co-star, Noel Wells, tweeted: "Can't wait for everyone to grow up and take responsibility."
But Ansari on Monday said in a statement the encounter was "completely consensual" and "everything did seem OK" to him.
"We went out to dinner, and afterwards we ended up engaging in sexual activity, which by all indications was completely consensual," he said.
"The next day, I got a text from her saying that although 'it may have seemed okay,' upon further reflection, she felt uncomfortable.
"It was true that everything did seem OK to me, so when I heard that it was not the case for her, I was surprised and concerned.
"I took her words to heart and responded privately after taking the time to process what she had said."
Ansari is a creator and star of the Netflix series Master of None, for which he has won several awards, including two Emmys and a Golden Globe for Best Actor — Television Series, Musical or Comedy.
Ansari this year became the first Asian-American actor ever to win a Golden Globe for acting in television.
Topics: sexual-offences, arts-and-entertainment, film-movies, human-interest, united-states
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