The comedian who confronted Harvey Weinstein during her set at a Manhattan bar last week was heckled, booed, and ultimately booted from the venue. Now Kelly Bachman is speaking out again, this time via an opinion piece in the New York Times in which she says she's "proud" she stood up to the disgraced producer. The 27-year-old comic, who reveals she's been raped three times, says she's not surprised she got jeered for calling out a man accused of rape—"that response is so terrifyingly familiar to me and most survivors"—and that she's had conflicting feelings since the incident, wondering if she'd disappointed other survivors "by not punching up harder." But she explains the context, lamenting the "lost time" she's spent over the years dealing with her own trauma.
"I've felt robbed of a decade of my life," she notes. "I'm tired. ... I'm tired of spending an entire week thinking about rapists instead of thinking about jokes. I'm tired of losing friends and family because of rapists. I'm tired of losing sleep because of rapists." And that's why, though she admits to guilt at not pushing back more, Bachman says she gave Weinstein a hard one-two verbal punch, then got right back to her set: "I didn't want to lose even 10 more minutes of my life to a rapist." She also notes she's been regaining her confidence and self-worth over the past couple of years, and that comedy has been therapeutic. "Laughter isn't just medicine; it's power," she says. "If I can laugh at the monster from my nightmares, if I can laugh at the most powerful predator in the entertainment world, maybe my pain doesn't control me as much as I thought it did." Her full piece is here. (More Harvey Weinstein stories.)
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