Over the weekend, “Parks & Recreation,” Golden Globe and Emmy winning star of “Master Of None,” and “Modern Romance” author, Aziz Ansari, was accused of sexual assault.
Grace, a 23-year-old Brooklyn-based photographer, who was 22 years old at the time of the incident, detailed the encounter to Babe, who first reported the allegation. According to Grace, she met Ansari at a 2017 Emmy Awards after-party, and gave him her number. A little over a week later, they went on a date in New York City, which started with dinner at a restaurant, and continued at his apartment two blocks away. Inside Ansari’s home, the mood quickly turned from flirtatious to aggressive. Here’s an excerpt from Babe’s reporting:
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. “It was really quick. Everything was pretty much touched and done within ten minutes of hooking up, except for actual sex.”
She says Ansari began making a move on her that he repeated during their encounter. “The move he kept doing was taking his two fingers in a V-shape and putting them in my mouth, in my throat to wet his fingers, because the moment he’d stick his fingers in my throat he’d go straight for my vagina and try to finger me.” Grace called the move “the claw.”
Ansari also physically pulled her hand towards his penis multiple times throughout the night, from the time he first kissed her on the countertop onward. “He probably moved my hand to his dick five to seven times,” she said. “He really kept doing it after I moved it away.”
But the main thing was that he wouldn’t let her move away from him. She compared the path they cut across his apartment to a football play. “It was 30 minutes of me getting up and moving and him following and sticking his fingers down my throat again. It was really repetitive. It felt like a fucking game.”
Ansari’s aggressive behavior continued throughout the encounter with Grace, who eventually managed to fend the actor off. Taking an Uber home the same night, she says she felt “violated” by the whole experience. The next day, she texted Ansari saying, “You ignored clear non-verbal cues; you kept going with advances. I want to make sure you’re aware so maybe the next girl doesn’t have to cry on the ride home.” The actor responded, writing, “I’m so sad to hear this. Clearly, I misread things in the moment and I’m truly sorry.”
Ansari has since released a longer statement about the incident, saying he thought the encounter with Grace was “completely consensual,” while continuing his support of the ongoing #MeToo and #TimesUp movement (the actor wore a pin for the latter at the Golden Globes):
In September of last year, I met a woman at a party. We exchanged numbers. We texted back and forth and eventually went on a date. We went out to dinner, and afterwards we ended up engaging in sexual activity, which by all indications was completely consensual.
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 okay 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.
I continue to support the movement that is happening in our culture. It is necessary and long overdue.
Netflix, who produces “Master Of None,” has not yet responded to the allegation.