Rand Paul accuser knocks down ‘kidnapping’ charge

The woman who claims that Senate candidate Rand Paul and a friend played a bizarre prank on her as Baylor University students is speaking out again.

She wants to clarify a misperception that's dogged the explosive story since GQ published it online Monday. No, she was not "kidnapped."

The Upshot pointed out Tuesday that the woman never claimed to have been "kidnapped," the charge that Paul categorically denied on Fox News. She actually told GQ reporter Jason Zengerle that the two men "blindfolded me, tied me up and put me in their car." Later, by her account, they tried to get her to take bong hits and bow down to what they said was their god, "Aqua Buddha."

The woman says she will not speak on the record for fear that doing so could hurt her career as a clinical psychologist. But she is talking, if only to set the record straight (as she sees it, if not Paul).

"The whole thing has been blown out of proportion," she told the Washington Post's Greg Sargent. "They didn't force me, they didn't make me. They were creating this drama: 'We're messing with you.'"

"I went along because they were my friends," she later added. "There was an implicit degree of cooperation in the whole thing. I felt like I was being hazed."

She stands by "the general outline of her earlier account," Sargent says. Indeed, the woman again claims they tried to get her to worship "Aqua Buddha" near a creek.

However, it's unlikely that Paul will discuss "Aqua Buddha" or any other aspects of the alleged incident.

Fox News host Neil Cavuto brought up the water deity Tuesday during his interview with Paul and mentioned that the whole ordeal could possibly be explained as "just a college prank."

Paul didn't bite, however, telling Cavuto that he was "not really going to try to go back 27 years and remember everything that happened in college."