Janice Dickinson accuses Bill Cosby of assault, Cosby lawyer responds

UPDATE: In a letter to The Wrap, Bill Cosby’s attorney, Marty Singer, responded to Dickinson’s accusations.

“Her new story claiming that she had been sexually assaulted is a defamatory fabrication,” Singer wrote to The Wrap.

Singer also denied Dickinson’s allegation that Cosby’s lawyers pressured her to remove passages from her autobiography referencing Cosby’s alleged rape of Dickinson.

“Neither Mr. Cosby or any of his attorneys were ever told by Harper Collins that Ms. Dickinson had supposedly planned to write that he had sexually assaulted her, and neither Mr. Cosby or any of his representatives ever communication [sic] with the publisher about any alleged rape or sexual assault about the book,” Singer also reportedly wrote to The Wrap.

ORIGINAL STORY, Nov. 18: Janice Dickinson accused Bill Cosby of sexually assaulting her in 1982 in a new interview with Entertainment Tonight. The news comes as several women have also come forward with rape allegations against the 77-year-old comedian.

Dickinson claims the pair had been discussing a potential role for her on The Cosby Show. Cosby asked her to travel to Lake Tahoe, where he was performing, to offer her the job and to help with her singing career. She says they met for dinner there, and that Cosby gave her a glass of red wine and a pill, which she requested to alleviate stomach pains.

“The next morning I woke up, and I wasn’t wearing my pajamas, and I remember before I passed out that I had been sexually assaulted by this man,” she told ET. “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 pajamas off and there was semen in between my legs.”

Last month, Hannibal Buress called Cosby a “rapist” in a standup performance that went viral. Following the gig, Barbara Bowman wrote a column for The Washington Post titled “Bill Cosby raped me. Why did it take 30 years for people to believe my story?” Joan Tarshis spoke out next in a piece published in Hollywood Elsewhere.

“I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do, and it happened to me, and this is the true story,” Dickinson said. “I believe all the other women.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Vice pointed to an excerpt from Dickinson’s No Lifeguard on Duty memoir that references an encounter she had with Cosby in Lake Tahoe. In the book, Dickinson says Cosby asked her back to his room after a dinner, but when she later changed her mind and said she was “exhausted,” he gave her the “dirtiest, meanest look in the world” and shut the door in her face.

In her ET interview, Dickinson said she originally included her entire story, but said Cosby’s lawyers demanded her publisher leave it out.

Cosby’s lawyer, John P. Schmitt, issued a statement on Sunday on the comedian’s website responding to the allegations: “Over the last several weeks, decade-old, discredited allegations against Mr. Cosby have resurfaced. The fact that they are being repeated does not make them true. Mr. Cosby does not intend to dignify these allegations with any comment. He would like to thank all his fans for the outpouring of support and assure them that, at age 77, he is doing his best work. There will be no further statement from Mr. Cosby or any of his representatives.”

The statement has since been taken down from the website. Instead, a new statement addressing Andrea Constand’s 2005 lawsuit against Bill Cosby for sexual assault can be found. Constand and Cosby settled outside of court. The joint statement from Dolores Troiani, counsel to Constand, and Schmitt, counsel to Cosby, reads: “The statement released by Mr. Cosby’s attorney over the weekend was not intended to refer in any way to Andrea Constand. As previously reported, differences between Mr. Cosby and Ms. Constand were resolved to the mutual satisfaction of Mr. Cosby and Ms. Constand years ago. Neither Mr. Cosby nor Ms. Constand intends to comment further on the matter.”

A representative for Cosby did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Dickinson.

UPDATE: Netflix postpones Bill Cosby plans