Model and TV host Janice Dickinson has claimed veteran comic Bill Cosby sexually assaulted her in the 1980s, then forced her to remove details of the alleged attack from her autobiography years later.
The legendary entertainer’s past has gained attention in recent weeks after another comic, Hannibal Buress, called him a “rapist” during a Philadelphia performance. Two other women have also emerged as accusers, including Barbara Bowman, who wrote an online Washington Post piece.
Cosby, 77, has remained silent, and his lawyer, John Schmitt, issued a statement on Sunday saying his client would not dignify “decade-old, discredited” claims of sexual abuse with a response. Now 59-year-old Dickinson has said she was assaulted by Cosby in Lake Tahoe, California, where he was appearing, in 1982.
She told TV news magazine Entertainment Tonight she wrote about the alleged assault in her 2002 autobiography, No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World’s First Supermodel, but Cosby and his lawyers pressured her and the publisher to remove the details.
She said she met Cosby in Lake Tahoe at his urging after he said he would help her with her singing career. They had met earlier when her agent had introduced them, hoping that she could get a job on The Cosby Show.
She told Entertainment Tonight that, after dinner, she and Cosby were in her hotel room and he gave her some red wine and a pill she had asked for because she had been suffering stomach pains.
“The next morning I woke up and I wasn’t wearing my pyjamas and I remembered before I passed out I had been sexually assaulted by this man,” she said.
She said she never confronted Cosby about the incident, but added: “I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do and this happened to me and this is a true story.”
Cosby, who was never criminally charged in any case, settled a civil suit with another woman in 2006 over an alleged incident two years before.
Meanwhile, Netflix says it is postponing Cosby’s upcoming stand-up comedy special, Bill Cosby 77, following the accusations.