One Month Ago, A Podcaster Said Aziz Ansari Was Going To Be Accused Of Sexual Misconduct

One month ago, popular podcaster Joe Budden said Aziz Ansari was going to be accused of sexual misconduct. Published on Soundcloud, the 140th episode of The Joe Budden Podcast has been listened to almost 200,000 times as of the writing of this article.

American rapper and member of the hip hop supergroup Slaughterhouse, Joe Budden, seems to have had insider Hollywood info before anyone else. Or rather, he seems to have been willing to leak it before anyone else.

Talking casually to his guests, Budden can be heard saying: “Here’s my scoop…Aziz Ansari, the comedian, I hear they’re getting him the f**k outta here in a couple of days. I’m sure I’m not the only one that’s heard this, but I’m probably the only one to say it on a podcast, so in the event that something happens to me…”

In January 2018, a woman using the pseudonym “Grace” accused Ansari of sexual misconduct in an article on Babe.net.

Titled “I went on a date with Aziz Ansari. It turned into the worst night of my life,” the article details Grace’s sexual encounter with the comedian. She approached him because she recognized his camera flash — Aziz Ansari was taking pictures at the 2017 Emmy Awards after-party with a film camera — the two flirted a little and, later on, the woman put her number in Ansari’s phone, at his suggestion, she claims.

Over the next couple of days, the two exchanged a few messages and then went on a date, on Monday, September 25. According to Grace, the date didn’t go as planned. “I just want to take this moment to make you aware of your behavior and how uneasy it made me.” Ansari responded to the message, writing: “Clearly, I misread things in the moment and I’m truly sorry.”

In her interview to babe.net, Grace said it was surreal to be meeting up with a major celebrity.

The exchange between the rapper and his guests doesn’t seem to be the most bizarre moment of this podcast episode. A few minutes after the exchange about Aziz Ansari, Joe Budden spilled some more information. “The next thing I’ll drop is even worse, because I hear they’re getting somebody else outta here. They’re running out of people, so the next one isn’t a person, it is a company. I’m hearing some things about Vice,” he concluded.

Budden was right about Vice too. On January 2 2018, Vice Media suspended two executives after allegations of sexual misconduct.

Vice is a media company focused on news, arts, and culture. This is not the first time for Vice to be in the epicenter of a sexual misconduct scandal. In December, 2017, the New York Times published an article on sexual harassment at Vice. The president of the company, Andrew Creighton, paid $135,000 to a former employee after she claimed she was fired after rejecting an intimate relationship with him.