On Tuesday night, Janice Dickinson became the 15th woman to accuse Bill Cosby of sexual assault, and the third in the last month, saying the comedian drugged and raped her in 1982. The 59-year-old America’s Next Top Model judge told Entertainment Tonight that she met Cosby while trying to get a role on his show, and he later called to invite her to Lake Tahoe, where he was performing. He said he wanted to help with her singing career and offer her the Cosby Show job. Dickinson claims that after dinner Cosby gave her red wine and a pill, which she asked for because she was having menstrual cramps. “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 said.
Dickinson continued, “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.â€
Dickinson says she never confronted Cosby, but she tried to write about the incident in her 2002 autobiography No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World’s First Supermodel. She says Cosby’s legal team pressured HarperCollins to remove the assault allegations. As Vice reports, the Lake Tahoe dinner is mentioned in the published version. Cosby comes off as lecherous, but Dickinson omits the rape from her account of how the night ended:
After dinner he asked me back to his room, and I went. But I stopped myself at the door. “I’m exhausted,†I said, begging off. His eyebrows went a little funny.
“Exhausted?†he asked, and it was clear he was trying hard to keep his temper in check. “After all I’ve done for you, that’s what I get? I’m exhausted.â€Â
“Well, gee, Bill,†I stammered. “If I had known it was going to be like this—â€
He waved both hands in front of my face, silencing me. Then he gave me the dirtiest, meanest look in the world, stepped into his suite, and slammed the door in my face.
In a 2006 interview with Howard Stern, Dickinson said she was asked to tone down that section of the book and described Cosby as a “bad guy†who preys on vulnerable women.
Dickinson said she believes the other women who have accused Cosby of sexual assault, and she decided to come forward now because “it’s the right thing to do, and it happened to me, and this is the true story.â€