The woman who has accused city Comptroller and mayoral candidate Scott Stringer of sexually harassing her, including groping her multiple times, appeared on a Zoom comedy show Thursday night and said she “had to MeToo one of the politicians I used to work with.”
“I was all over the news because I was part of this MeToo press conference,” Jean Kim, a lobbyist who also does stand-up comedy, said during “Gladys’s Virtual Comedy Party,” which was livestreamed on Facebook and hosted by Big Apple comic Gladys Simon.
“I don’t want to sound like a cliché, but I had to MeToo one of the politicians I used to work with because he couldn’t keep his thing in his pants,” Kim, 49, said in reference to Stringer, prompting several comics on the Zoom video call to shout, “Oh!”
Kim went public Wednesday to claim Stringer preyed on her in 2001, when she was 29 and he was 40. She said she was working as an unpaid intern on his failed campaign for public advocate.
“One evening, shortly before the primary, I was talking to Stringer about the primary when without warning, and without my consent, he kissed me using his tongue, put his hand down my pants and groped me inside my underpants,” Kim, speaking alongside her lawyer, told reporters near City Hall.
“I pulled away and tried to avoid him. He warned me not to tell anyone about it,” she said.
Kim said that after the alleged incident, she “avoided” Stringer for “several days.”
“When I saw him next, he said to me, ‘I can make you the first Asian District Leader on the Upper West Side,’” Kim alleged. “When I asked what steps I would need to take, he responded, ‘You would have to prove yourself to me.’”
Kim continued, “When we were traveling together in taxis to and from campaign events, he repeatedly put his hands on my thighs and between my legs. He asked me on more than one occasion, ‘Why won’t you f—k me?’”
During her Zoom comedy bit Thursday, Kim spoke of how she watched her bombshell press conference on the local news.
“I was watching myself on NY1 and the local news. I actually knocked Rudy Giuliani off of the top of the news, well, because it was like this New York City mayoral candidate,” Kim said of Stringer.
Federal agents raided former Mayor Giuliani’s Manhattan apartment and office on Wednesday as part of an investigation into his dealings in Ukraine.
Kim joked during her comedy skit, “A couple months ago, I got my pandemic test results and they told me my blood was filled with alcohol, sugar and fat.”
“I feel very health and good about myself,” she added.
Stringer has completely denied the sexual assault allegations made by Kim, but did say the two had an “on-and-off” months-long “consensual” relationship when Kim was 30 and he was 41.
The comptroller, who celebrated his 61st birthday Thursday, has also denied that Kim worked as an intern on his campaign and instead claimed she was “employed at the time as a publicist.”
