'I understand why they won't come forward'
Crews said he went public with the alleged incident after multiple women came forward to accuse now-disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct.
"I put it in the back of my head, and I understood why women everywhere had to let it go," Crews said. "When the Weinstein thing started happening, I got PTSD. I was going, 'Oh, my God, this exact thing happened to me. I understand why they won't come forward.'"
Weinstein, 65, has admitted wrongdoing but through a spokesperson has repeatedly denied having nonconsensual sexual relations with accusers.
Crews compared being abused by a person in power to being a war captive.
"When a person of power breaks that boundary and violates that boundary, you're a prisoner of war," he said. "Immediately, you're in a camp because you're trying to figure out when is the right time to come out."
"This the thing that a lot of people just don't understand, and they end up blaming the victim," he said. "I have totally said I will not be shamed. I will not be shamed. I did nothing wrong. Nothing."
Crews credited his wife with keeping him calm after the alleged assault.
"My wife told me three years earlier, she said, 'Terry, you can never handle any situation like this with violence. You are a target. You are going to be baited and pulled if you react physically,'" he said. "When I grabbed her hand and I left that party — we were only there for, like, half an hour — and I got in the car, I almost ripped the steering wheel off."
"If I would have just retaliated in defense, I would be under the jail right now. That's one thing I knew, that being a large African-American man in America, I would immediately be seen as a thug," he added. "But I'm not a thug. I'm an artist."
Crews, a father of five, said he was also motivated to speak publicly after delivering a keynote address for an organization that helps victims of sexual assault.
"I said, 'Man, what kind of man would I be to tell my kids, 'If someone touches you where you don't want to be touched, tell someone, tell someone,' and then I don't do it?" he said. "Let me tell you something, it freed me."
He continued, "I knew instantly that I had to tell my story so that other people could be free."
