Connie Chung is reviewing crucial details about the man who allegedly sexually abused her when she was young.
Six years after going public with the news, the veteran television journalist wrote in her new memoir that a “trusted family doctor” had touched her inappropriately during her first gynecological exam. She noted that this doctor was also present at her birth.
“What made this monster even more reprehensible was that he was the same doctor who had delivered me on August 20, 1946,” Chung wrote in “Connie: A Memoir,” according to an excerpt shared with Us Weekly.
The 78-year-old media personality wrote that she was in college at the time of the incident and had made an appointment with the gynecologist to get birth control. She went into detail about how the doctor, who has since passed away, allegedly massaged her genitals and helped her get over the assault. Chung wrote that “for the first time in my life, I had an orgasm” and that her doctor leaned in and kissed her on the lips after the interaction.
“I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t even look at him,” she wrote.
Chung’s account of the abuse in her memoir echoes lines from a letter she wrote in 2018 to Christine Blasey Ford amid Blasey Ford’s allegations of sexual assault against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh. In the letter, published in the Washington Post in October 2018, Chung said the abuse occurred during the 1960s.
“I did not report it [the doctor] “To the authorities. It never crossed my mind to protect other women,” she wrote in the letter. “Please understand that I was actually ashamed of my sexual naivety. I was in my twenties and knew nothing about sex. All I wanted to do was bury the incident in my mind and protect my family.”
He concluded the letter: “Bravo, Christine, for telling the truth.”
Chung is a former network news anchor whose extensive career includes stints on ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN and collaborations with heavyweights such as Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters. Chung last appeared on television in 2006, but has recently returned to the spotlight to promote her new book.
“Connie: A Memoir,” which also details the broadcast television personality’s experiences as an Asian-American woman and her marriage to Maury Povich, came out Tuesday.
