Fresh Off The Boat writer Eddie Huang has revealed he was sexually assaulted at age 14.
In a column on The Cut, Huang details the traumatic incident that occurred on a Baptist church ski trip.
Huang explains how he was relaxing in a room with his friend when their church chaperone, described as “a tall, dark-for-a-white-man, Daniel Day-Lewis in ‘Last of the Mohicans” came into their room to use their shower.
Thinking nothing of it, Huang and his friend obliged. However, after his shower, the chaperone emerged without clothing.
“I get knots in my stomach and blood rushes to my brain when I begin to write this. I think it’s anger, but I’m not sure. More than anything, I just feel powerless to the memory. Him taking his time with the shower, steaming up the room, then coming out with his dick hanging out,” Huang wrote.
The writer and restauranteur says he tried to disregard the chaperone as “some weirdo trying to show out and air dry like Cuba Gooding Jr. in ‘Jerry Maguire.'”
However, the chaperone who stood by the foot of his bed then began to read the bible aloud with an erect penis for 15 minutes.
“You’re never ready for it and you never think it would happen to you, but it was happening and it kept going. He took out a Bible and started to read scripture with his dick hard,” Huang recalls.
“My chest started to tighten and I couldn’t breathe, fearful for what would happen next. The panic turned to outrage and ultimately humiliation.”
Huang considered fighting the chaperone but due to his size, he decided not to. He also doubted anyone would believe him if he spoke of the incident.
“My friend was a troublemaker and I was his weird Chinese friend; no one was going to take our word over this chaperone’s,” he said.
“Even if I told somebody, there was nothing they could give back to make me whole again. Inside I was screaming for someone to come save the two of us and take the responsibility out of my hands, but nobody ever showed up.”
Allegations about Harvey Weinstein and Anthony Rapp’s allegation against Kevin Spacey encouraged Huang to reveal his story.
“A Band-Aid had been ripped off and a memory triggered that I had deliberately locked away,” Huang writes. “All of the emotions came rushing back, but again I hung onto my safe place on the sidelines”
“(Rapp) shared something with us all that I never could and it made me feel OKAY.”
Huang closes his column declaring that assault should not define the victims who have the power to find themselves.
“I’m not just a kid some pedophile read Psalms to. And if someone sexually assaulted you, it isn’t who you are either. We have a fucking choice. We can’t always control what people do to us, but we do have the power to define it.”
“When I look back, nothing was actually taken. I was hijacked, but I fought my way back and arrived as the man I’m supposed to be.”
