The former model says it happened in 1982.
Entertainment Tonight
In the escalating flood of Bill Cosby accusers, Janice Dickinson, the former model, has told Entertainment Tonight that Cosby raped her in 1982.
According to Dickinson, Cosby flew her to Lake Tahoe where he was performing to offer her a job and help with her career. The two of them went back to her hotel room, she said. "He'd given me wine and a pill," she said. "I remember before I passed out I had been sexually assaulted by this man."
BuzzFeed News contacted Cosby's representative about Dickinson's allegations, but did not hear back. On Sunday, responding to the recent tsunami of stories about accusations against Cosby, the comedian's attorney issued a statement that read in part: "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."
Since then, a former publicist Joan Tarshis came forward to allege that Cosby raped her twice in 1969.
In 2006, Cosby settled a lawsuit with a woman, Andrea Constand, who claimed that he had drugged and raped her in 2004. Thirteen women who said they had similar stories agreed to testify had the lawsuit gone to trial. Since Cosby chose to settle, it never did.
Interestingly, the sweeping statement issued by Cosby's attorney over the weekend was quietly amended to reflect that settled lawsuit. Constand's and Cosby's lawyers posted this joint statement on billcosby.com. "The statement released by Mr. Cosby's attorney over the weekend was not intended to refer in any way to Andrea Constand," it read. "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."
It is one of the mysteries of the modern world why some people's scandals stick to them and taint them, while others deflect their disgraces. Cosby was once in the second category, but of late has found himself in the first. Though a recent biography of Cosby by Mark Whitaker overlooked the accusations and the settled lawsuit, the omission then became a story. Then the comedian Hannibal Buress called Cosby a rapist during a stand-up set. Last week, one of his Cosby's accusers, Barbara Bowman, wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post : "Bill Cosby raped me. Why did it take 30 years for people to believe my story?"
And last Monday, there was also the disastrous #CosbyMeme, in which fans were solicited to meme pictures of Cosby on his site. Many users subverted the request by commenting on the rape allegations against him. The meme generator disappeared from his site, and the tweet from his account was deleted.
When NPR's Scott Simon asked Cosby to address the accusations in an interview that aired on Saturday, Cosby would not say a word, but shook his head no. Cosby has recently canceled appearances on the Queen Latifah show and David Letterman's Late Show, so Simon has been the only interviewer to get to ask Cosby himself the question.
NBC, which announced in January it was developing a family sitcom with Cosby, and has found itself at the fulcrum of this run of bad press, told BuzzFeed News Tuesday it had "no comment" about the show's future. The sitcom is in development for the fall 2015 season, produced by Sony, and is being written by Mike Sikowitz and Mike O'Malley. There is no script for it yet.
Logic would say it is surely doomed.
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