Miguel has issued a new statement regarding University of New Mexico student Xian Bass' sexual assault allegation. In an Instagram post in March 2017, Bass accused Miguel of grabbing her breast and removing it from her shirt without consent at a club in Los Angeles. In a new statement to Spin via his publicist, Miguel called Bass' resurfaced accusations "bizarre and twisted."
Bass was interviewed as part of a Spinfeature titled "Miguel's War & Leisure and the Allegation We Forgot." The alleged assault, Bass said, took place at Tenants of the Trees on March 14 while she was on vacation. "To just grab [my breast] like that is an act of ownership…It had nothing to do with how I looked or what I wore," Bass, 31, told Rich Juzwiak. "It had to do with power."
Bass filed a police report after the alleged incident, something she was initially reluctant to do. "I didn't want to [file the report] because black lives matter," she said. "I [didn't] want to because I do not want to put another brown man in jail. I [didn't] want to because I [didn't] want to be re-traumatized by going to law enforcement. However, yes, I did. I didn't want to, but I do know that for other people who may have been abused or assaulted or whatever, maybe this will help them as well."
According to Bass, a detective later said no action could be taken against Miguel unless "other women" come forward. LAPD officer Charles Morton confirmed that a sexual assault or harassment allegation involving the two had been investigated.
Miguel's full statement to Spin reads, "I felt I had already addressed how bizarre and twisted this accusation was when I was asked about it in March. Her story of what transpired is not accurate and the accusation is unfair and unwarranted."
He first minimized Bass' story for TMZ shortly after she went public, nine months ago. Miguel called the accusation “not even worth answering” and said we're seeing an epidemic of people "really looking for attention in the wrong ways":
