The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, one of the authors of the story detailing Deborah Ramirez’s account of alleged sexual misconduct perpetrated by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, said that rumors of the alleged episode were so widespread that the New Yorker reached out to Ramirez—not the other way around.

“She didn’t come forward with it,” Mayer said Monday on NBC’s “Today.” “What happened was, the classmates at Yale were talking to each other about it, they were emailing about it. We’ve seen the emails, back in July before Christine Blasey Ford came forward, and eventually the word of it spread.”

“It spread to the Senate. It spread to the media,” she continued. “And [we] reached out to her. After giving it really careful consideration for six days, she decided to talk to [Ronan Farrow].”

Watch Mayer’s comments here.