Amy Schumer Opens Up About Her Own Me Too Moment In Interview With Katie Couric
Amy Schumer has opened up about the Me Too Movement, her own Me Too moment, and the Aziz Ansari controversy in an interview on Katie Couric’s podcast.
Speaking to Couric about the recent conversation about sexual harassment and abuse, Schumer claimed that she was “flat-out raped.”
“I’ve been flat-out raped,” the comedian and actress said, according to The Wrap. “But there are so many other kinds of sexual misconduct. We’ve all – every woman I know, every woman in this room – we’ve all had these experiences. In this current climate, it brings these things up and you go, ‘God, none of that was okay.'”
Schumer also said on the podcast that many of her college experiences and hookups felt coerced and pressured. Citing Samantha Bee, Schumer explained that not everything has to be rape to be wrong.
This isn’t the first time that Schumer has opened up about her experience with sexual assault, though. According to The Guardian, Schumer said that her first sexual experience was being raped when she was in her late teens. She said she hadn’t thought about the experience until she started re-reading her journal recently.
She wrote about the experience “almost like a throwaway” and said, “and I looked down and realized he was inside of me. He was saying, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and, ‘I can’t believe I did this.'”
Schumer has talked openly about this experience and also wrote about it in her 2016 book, The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo.
Schumer has also claimed she had other nonconsensual experiences after this. She previously recalled that a boyfriend “completely ignored” her when she said, “No, stop” during a sexual experience.
Schumer also opened up about her “friend” Ansari during her interview with Couric. She thinks it’s great that the younger generation is looking at consent more critically and that women realize that what’s been seen as acceptable for so long is now being recognized as not acceptable.
Schumer also said that nobody wants to see Ansari’s career ruined over this, but that we need to acknowledge that that kind of behavior isn’t OK and that women need to tell men that this behavior isn’t OK and then leave if they’re uncomfortable. If you don’t say something, according to Schumer, then it can happen to other women.
“He’s been my friend and I really feel for the woman,” Schumer also said, according to The Huffington Post. “I identify with all the women in these situations. Even if it’s my friend, I don’t go, ‘Oh, but he’s a good guy.’ I think, ‘What would it feel like to have been her?'”
Earlier this year, a woman going by the name Grace described a date she went on with Ansari as “the worst night of my life.” She claimed that Ansari continued to pursue a sexual encounter with her despite her indicating how uncomfortable she was.
Anzari later gave a statement saying that he thought the experience was consensual, but he got a text from her saying she was uncomfortable, and he was “surprised and concerned.” He “took her words to heart” and responded to her privately after thinking about what she’d said.
