Amy Schumer Opened Up To Oprah About Her ‘Grey Area’ Sexual Assault

Amy Schumer has revealed that her first sexual experience was not consensual – and says she wants people to realise that rape isn’t always “a guy popping out from a bush”.

Speaking to Oprah Winfrey on her show Super Soul Sessions, the actress and comedian opened up about the time she was sexually assaulted by her boyfriend as a teenager.

She has previously discussed the incident (which she called ‘grape’ or ‘grey area rape’ in her stand-up, as a way to make people “laugh as they learned”.

“When we hear about rape when we’re children, and we’re being warned about it, it’s about a guy popping out from a bush… and some villain,” she told Oprah.

They don’t say it’s probably gonna be a guy you know really well. It could be your husband. It could be your friend. And so you think, when that happens you, you say, “OK, this isn’t someone I want to see rotting in a jail cell, but what he did to me was wrong, and I didn’t consent.”

And for me, I lost my virginity while I was asleep. And that’s not OK. So, in my standup I would say, “If she’s asleep, that’s a no.’ Just hoping that a couple guys would see that and it would be met in that moment, like, “This is a no. I heard that somewhere.”

Amy said that her boyfriend excused his actions by saying that he ‘thought she knew’ what was going on – she felt like she couldn’t get angry, and had to comfort him.

She and her boyfriend went on to have consensual sex, but Amy wanted to make it very clear that this doesn’t negate the earlier assault. As she told Oprah:

Amy: I personally feel like I lost my virginity through rape. I didn’t consent. We hadn’t discussed it. We weren’t there at that moment.
Oprah: So it felt like deep betrayal.
Amy: Yeah. From someone I really trusted.

You can watch the entire interview here.

• Amy Schumer
• Oprah Winfrey
• sexual assault