Aziz Ansari Addresses Sexual Misconduct Allegations in New Netflix Special Right Now

More than a year after Aziz Ansari was accused of sexual misconduct by a woman who claimed she felt pressured into engaging in sexual activity with him, the comedian and actor is speaking up about the incident in his new stand-up special for Netflix, Aziz Ansari: Right Now.

In the special, which was directed by Spike Jonze, Ansari opens his act with an anecdote about being confused forPatriot Actstar Hasan Minhaj, which led the other party involved to try to compensate for the mistake by listing out all of the things he knew to be associated with Ansari: Master of None, Parks and Recreation, and "that whole thing last year, sexual misconduct." After joking, "No, no, no, no, no, that was Hasan," Ansari gets more serious about the matter.

"I'm sure some of you that are curious how I feel about that situation. And it's a tricky thing for me to answer because I've felt so many things in the last year or so," he says to his live audience. "There's times I've felt scared. There's times I felt humiliated. There's times I've felt embarrassed. And ultimately, I just felt terrible that this person felt this way."

The allegations against Ansari first came to light in January 2018, when a woman using the pseudonym "Grace" claimed that Ansari pressured her into engaging in sexual activity with him after a date in 2017. Ansari initially denied that their encounter was anything but "completely consensual" and said in a statement that he was "surprised and concerned" to learn that she did not feel the same way. The story ultimately divided some readers about whether his alleged conduct was on the same level as other #MeToo expositions.

In his Netflix special, Ansari speaks not only about how the conversation changed him, but also about the response from others who read Grace's account.

"After a year or so, I just hope it was a step forward. It moved things forward for me, made me think about a lot. I hope I become a better person," says Ansari. "I always think about a conversation I had with one of my friends where he was like, 'You know what, man? That whole thing made me think about every date I've ever been on.' And I thought, 'Wow, that's pretty incredible. If this made not just me, but other people be more thoughtful, then that's a good thing.'"

Ansari recognizes that beginning his act with that discussion might not be "the most hilarious way to begin a comedy show," but he tells his audience it was "important" to him to address the subject before moving on to jokes about other issues.

Aziz Ansari: Right Now is now streaming on Netflix.