Connie Chung is revisiting crucial details about the man who allegedly sexually abused her as a young woman.
The veteran TV journalist, six years after first going public about the incident, wrote in her new memoir that a “trusted family doctor” had touched her inappropriately during her first gynecological exam. She noted that this doctor also was present for her birth.
“What made this monster even more reprehensible was that he was the very 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 booked an appointment with the gynecologist to obtain birth control. She went into details about how the doctor, who has since died, allegedly massaged her genitals and coached her through the assault. Chung wrote that “for the first time in my life, I had an orgasm,” and that her doctor had leaned over and kissed her on the lips after the interaction.
“I did not say a word. I could not even look at him,” she wrote.
Chung’s account of the abuse in her memoir echoes lines from a 2018 letter she penned 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 [the doctor] to authorities. It never crossed my mind to protect other women,” she wrote in the letter. “Please understand, I was actually embarrassed about my sexual naivete. I was in my 20s and knew nothing about sex. All I wanted to do was bury the incident in my mind and protect my family.”
She concluded the letter: “Bravo, Christine, for telling the truth.”
Chung is a former network news anchor whose expansive career includes chapters at ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN and collaborations with heavyweights including Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters. Chung last appeared on TV in 2006 but has recently returned to the spotlight to promote her new book.
“Connie: A Memoir,” which also details the media personality’s experiences in broadcast television as an Asian American woman and her marriage to Maury Povich, came out Tuesday.