Janice Dickinson is Latest Woman to Accuse Bill Cosby of Rape
Former model-turned-TV personality Janice Dickinson has become the fourth woman to accuse comedian Bill Cosby of sexual assault.
In an exclusive new interview with U.S. news show Entertainment Tonight, Dickinson details an alleged encounter with Cosby in 1982, when he offered to help her with a planned singing career after she left rehab.
She recalls she was holidaying in Bali when Cosby invited her to Lake Tahoe, California, where he was performing, so they could discuss her career and a possible role on his hit comedy The Cosby Show.
The former catwalk star claims he offered her red wine and a pill when she complained of stomach pains over dinner.
She recalls, “The next morning I woke up, and I wasn’t wearing my pyjamas, and I remember before I passed out that I had been sexually assaulted by this man. Before I woke up in the morning, the last thing I remember was Bill Cosby in a patchwork robe, dropping his robe and getting on top of me. And I remember a lot of pain. The next morning I remember waking up with my pyjamas off and there was semen in between my legs.”
Dickinson reveals she wrote about the assault in the first draft of her 2002 autobiography No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World’s First Supermodel, but claims Cosby and his lawyers pressured publishers at HarperCollins to remove the details.
She tells ET, “I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do, and it happened to me, and this is the true story. I believe all the other women… I didn’t have counsel and I was afraid of the consequences. I was afraid of being labeled a whore or a slut and trying to sleep my way to the top of a career that never took place.”
Dickinson admits she has never confronted Cosby over the alleged incident, but she wouldn’t hold back if she met him again today.
She rages, “(I’d say) ‘How dare you. Go f**k yourself. How dare you take advantage of me. And I hope you rot’.”
The ex-model is the third woman to come forward with a sexual assault accusation against Cosby after comedian Hannibal Buress called the veteran entertainer a “rapist” during a stand-up show in October.
Publicist Joan Tarshis came forward with her own allegations against the comic on Monday, claiming he assaulted her on two occasions in 1969 after she drank a vodka and beer cocktail, which Cosby called a redeye. Like Dickinson, she claims she was unconscious during the alleged assault.
Another reported victim, Barbara Bowman, wrote a piece for the Washington Post earlier this month detailing her alleged assault at the hands of Cosby in 1985, when she was 17.
She wrote, “In one case, I blacked out after having dinner and one glass of wine at his New York City brownstone, where he had offered to mentor me and discuss the entertainment industry. When I came to, I was in my panties and a man’s T-shirt, and Cosby was looming over me. I’m certain now that he drugged and raped me. But as a teenager, I tried to convince myself I had imagined it.”
Bowman was one of 13 women asked to testify against the comedian when a woman named Andrea Constand filed a suit against Cosby in 2004. The case was eventually settled out of court.
Cosby has refused to comment on the latest allegations, but his lawyer, John P. Schmitt, issued a statement on Sunday, which read: “Over the last several weeks, decade-old, discredited allegations against Mr. Cosby have resurfaced. The fact they are being repeated does not make them true. Mr. Cosby does not intend to dignify these allegations with any comment.”
Cosby has never been charged with sexual assault.
Photo Credit:Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com
Responses