‘I’m No Longer Afraid’: 35 Women Tell Their Stories About Being Assaulted by Bill Cosby, and the Culture That Wouldn’t Listen

By

More has changed in the past few years for women who allege rape than in all the decades since the women’s movement began. Consider the evidence of October 2014, when a Philadelphia magazine reporter at a Hannibal Buress show uploaded a clip of the comedian talking about Bill Cosby: “He gets on TV, ‘Pull your pants up, black people … I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom.’ Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby, so turn the crazy down a couple notches … I guess I want to just at least make it weird for you to watch Cosby Show reruns. Dude’s image, for the most part, it’s fucking public Teflon image. I’ve done this bit onstage and people think I’m making it up … That shit is upsetting.” The bit went viral swiftly, with irreversible, calamitous consequences for Cosby’s reputation.

Perhaps the most shocking thing wasn’t that Buress had called Cosby a rapist; it was that the world had actually heard him. A decade earlier, 14 women had accused Cosby of rape. In 2005, a former basketball star named Andrea Constand, who met Cosby when she was working in the athletic department at Temple University, where he served on the board of trustees, alleged to authorities that he had drugged her to a state of semi-consciousness and then groped and digitally penetrated her. After her allegations were made public, a California lawyer named Tamara Green appeared on the Today show and said that, 30 years earlier, Cosby had drugged and assaulted her as well. Eventually, 12 Jane Does signed up to tell their own stories of being assaulted by Cosby in support of Constand’s case. Several of them eventually made their names public. But they were met, mostly, with skepticism, threats, and attacks on their character.

Read her story
BEVERLY JOHNSON,62. Alleged assault: mid-1980s.
×

Name: Beverly Johnson

Age: 62

Occupation: model, actress

Alleged Assault: mid-1980s

Johnson got a call from her agent saying Cosby wanted Johnson to audition for a small role on The Cosby Show. Johnson met Cosby on the set, where he invited her to come over to his house to read for a part. The first time, Johnson brought her young daughter with her. Cosby served them brunch and gave them a tour of the house. Johnson returned a second time, alone. They talked about her career and Cosby led her upstairs, under the pretense that they would rehearse. Cosby had a big espresso machine installed in the room, and he insisted Johnson have a cup. She didn’t want to argue, and took two sips. After the second, she knew she had been drugged. Cosby approached her, and put his hand on her waist. Johnson cursed him and called him out for drugging her. Cosby grabbed her arm and almost dragged her down the stairs, out of the house, and into a cab. “In the end, just like the other women, I had too much to lose to go after Bill Cosby,” Johnson wrote in her initial public testimonial about the incident, in Vanity Fair, in December 2014. “It comes at an inopportune time for a black man of Cosby’s stature. It’s a conversation of race very much needed in this country for centuries, and there’s a conversation about violence against women that’s also needed. You have these two conversations happening. Just so happens that I am a black woman. Once I made the decision, I knew that [it] was going to be fraught with a lot of conflicting views. No one wants to be victimized again.”

« Back to Article

In Cosby’s deposition for the Constand case, revealed to the public just last week, the comedian admitted pursuing sex with young women with the aid of Quaaludes, which can render a person functionally immobile. “I used them,” he said, “the same as a person would say, ‘Have a drink.’ ” He asked a modeling agent to connect him with young women who were new in town and “financially not doing well.” In the deposition, Cosby seemed confident that his behavior did not constitute rape; he apparently saw little difference between buying someone dinner in pursuit of sex and drugging them to reach the same goal. As for consent, he said, “I think that I’m a pretty decent reader of people and their emotions in these romantic sexual things.” If these women agreed to meet up, his deposition suggested, he felt that he had a right to them. And part of what took the accusations against Cosby so long to surface is that this belief extended to many of the women themselves (as well as the staff and lawyers and friends and others who helped keep the incidents secret).

Months after his depositions, Cosby settled the case with Constand. The accusations quickly faded from the public’s memory, if they registered at all. No one wanted to believe the TV dad in a cardigan was capable of such things, and so they didn’t. The National Enquirer had planned to run a big story detailing one of the women’s accounts, but the magazine pulled it when Cosby agreed to give them a two-page exclusive telling his side (essentially that these were instances that had been “misinterpreted”). People ran a piece in which some of the Jane Does told their stories under their own names, bolstering Constand’s account, but Cosby’s career rolled on. In 2014 alone, there was a stand-up special, plans for a new family comedy on NBC, and a high-profile biography by Mark Whitaker that glossed over the accusations.

The group of women Cosby allegedly assaulted functions almost as a longitudinal study — both for how an individual woman, on her own, deals with such trauma over the decades and for how the culture at large has grappled with rape over the same time period. In the ’60s, when the first alleged assault by Cosby occurred, rape was considered to be something violent committed by a stranger; acquaintance rape didn’t register as such, even for the women experiencing it. A few of Cosby’s accusers claim that he molested or raped them multiple times; one remained in his orbit, in and out of a drugged state, for years. In the ’70s and ’80s, campus movements like Take Back the Night and “No Means No” helped raise awareness of the reality that 80 to 90 percent of victims know their attacker. Still, the culture of silence and shame lingered, especially when the men accused had any kind of status. The first assumption was that women who accused famous men were after money or attention. As Cosby allegedly told some of his victims: No one would believe you. So why speak up?

Read her story
PATRICIA LEARY STEUER,59. Alleged assaults: 1978 and 1980.
×

Name: Patricia Leary Steuer

Age: 59

Occupation: former training and development specialist

Alleged Assault: 1978, 1980

Then-22-year-old Steuer worked at the University of Massachusetts and met Cosby there after he gave a lecture in 1978. He offered to mentor Steuer as she pursued a singing career. Cosby later invited her to a dinner party at his Massachusetts home. When Steuer got there, the table was set for just two people. Cosby handed Steuer a drink and insisted she perform an improv exercise, pretending she was a queen with oatmeal covering her face. She began to feel woozy. Her next memory is of Cosby standing above her — her clothes off — in a bathrobe. He handed her a toothbrush, telling her she had gotten sick and passed out in his guestroom. Steuer went home, still unsure of what actually happened to her. Cosby kept in touch, arranging for acting lessons and a gym membership for her. He invited Steuer to events, but nothing more occurred until he asked her to join him in Atlantic City. In the evening, she met him in his suite, where he handed her two large pills and a glass of Champagne. The next morning, she woke up naked in one of the rooms of his suite. Steuer joined on as a Jane Doe in the 2005 Andrea Constand lawsuit; she had initially wanted a pseudonym in New York, but when the news broke that Cosby admitted in depositions that he’d given women quaaludes, she sent an email saying that protection wasn’t necessary. “He can no longer claim that we are lying,” she wrote.

“I wanted to spend time with him because this is the man who said he was going to help me with my career. So I thought, ‘Okay, I'll take the pills.’ I really had no idea what his modus operandi was. Not that I blame myself, or that I feel responsible, but I allowed my ambition to overrule my judgment. I placed my trust in a flawed human being. I don't want to ever be seen as his victim. What happened happened.

I told the man that I was going to marry, whom I met shortly after that. I told some of my friends. I got a mixture of disbelief, but I didn't get a lot of encouragement to go to the authorities because, in the late '70s, women didn't challenge powerful men.”

« Back to Article

But among younger women, and particularly online, there is a strong sense now that speaking up is the only thing to do, that a woman claiming her own victimhood is more powerful than any other weapon in the fight against rape. Emma Sulkowicz, carrying her mattress around Columbia in a performance-art protest of her alleged rape, is an extreme practitioner of this idea. This is a generation that’s been radicalized, in just the past few years, by horrific examples of rape and reactions to rape — like the 2012 Steubenville incident, in which high-school football players brutally violated a passed-out teenage girl at a party and photographed and braggingly circulated the evidence. That same year, when a 14-year-old Missouri cheerleader accused a popular older boy at her school of sexual assault, her classmates shamed her on social media and the family’s house was burned down. The whole world watched online. How could this kind of thing still be happening? These cases felt unignorable, unforgettable, Old Testament biblical. Would anyone have believed the girls, or cared, had the evidence not been digitizable? And: How could you be a young woman and not care deeply about trying to fix this?

This generation will probably be further galvanized by the allegations that a national cultural icon may have been allowed to drug and rape women for decades, with no repercussions. But these younger women have given something to Cosby’s accusers as well: a model for how to speak up, and a megaphone in the form of social media.

Facebook and Twitter, the forums that helped circulate the Buress clip, were full of rage at Cosby’s perceived cruelty. Barbara Bowman, who’d come forward during the Constand case, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about her frustration that no one had believed her for all those years. Three days after Bowman’s op-ed, another woman, Joan Tarshis, came forward to say Cosby had drugged and raped her in 1969. By the end of November, 16 more women had come forward. Cosby resigned from Temple’s board of trustees and sought monetary damages from one of his accusers; he also told “Page Six” that he wanted “the black media to uphold the standards of excellence in journalism [and] go in with a neutral mind.” (Cosby, through representatives, has consistently denied any wrongdoing, and hasn’t been charged with any crimes. Emails to four of his lawyers and press reps went unanswered, although his team has begun a media tour to deny that his admission of offering Quaaludes to women was tantamount to admitting he’d raped anyone.) By February, there were another 12 accusers. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler joked about it at the Golden Globes: “Sleeping Beauty just thought she was getting coffee with Bill Cosby.” Attorney Gloria Allred got involved, representing more than a dozen of the women. Even President Obama said it was clear to him: “If you give a woman — or a man, for that matter — without his or her knowledge a drug, and then have sex with that person without consent, that’s rape.”

There are now 46 women who have come forward publicly to accuse Cosby of rape or sexual assault; the 35 women here are the accusers who were willing to be photographed and interviewed by New York. The group, at present, ranges in age from early 20s to 80 and includes supermodels Beverly Johnson and Janice Dickinson alongside waitresses and Playboy bunnies and journalists and a host of women who formerly worked in show business. Many of the women say they know of others still out there who’ve chosen to remain silent.

Read her story
MARCELLA TATE,67. Alleged assault: 1975.
Read her story
LINDA JOY TRAITZ,64. Alleged assault: 1969.
Read her story
LINDA KIRKPATRICK,58. Alleged assault: 1981.
×

Name: Linda Joy Traitz

Age: 64

Occupation: sales

Alleged Assault: 1969

Traitz met Cosby while working as a waitress at Café Figaro in Los Angeles. The comedian offered to drive her home one night, but instead he took her to a beach. They parked and he pulled out a briefcase full of pills. He told her to take one to relax, but Traitz declined. He became angry. He groped her and tried to climb on top of her. Traitz pushed Cosby away, and fended him off. “I was assaulted, but I wasn’t raped,” she says. She came forward on Facebook in November 2014 after seeing comments from people attacking one of Cosby’s victims. “I blamed myself at the time. I thought I did something wrong. This happened when I was 18. It took me a long, long time to come to terms with the fact that it was him, it wasn’t me. You have to pick yourself up and keep moving. If you don’t, you become a victim for the rest of your life. Nobody wants that. Life has not been easy for me. I’ve had a little bit of a hard time. I had addiction problems as I got older, in my 40s. It got me. It brought me to my knees. ”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Linda Kirkpatrick

Age: 58

Occupation: former administrative assistant, entrepreneur

Alleged Assault:1981

Kirkpatrick played against Cosby in a mixed-doubles tennis tournament in Las Vegas. The comedian made a wager: If Kirkpatrick and her partner beat Cosby and his partner, Cosby would give them free tickets to his show. Kirkpatrick and her partner won. Her tennis partner was unavailable, so Kirkpatrick went to the show alone and was escorted to Cosby’s dressing room. He handed her a glass filled with a clear liquid and what appeared to be fruit at the bottom; she drank about half of it. Her memory of the rest of the night is a blur, but some moments stuck with her: Cosby on top of her, trying to kiss her; Cosby wearing a silver bracelet with his wife’s name on it. She doesn’t remember how she got home. Cosby called the tennis club to apologize for his behavior, and offered to make it up to her. Kirkpatrick accepted his apology and went to his hotel in promise of receiving a front-row seat to his show. Again, Cosby tried to force himself on her. She pushed him away, and left. She came forward in January 2015. “I didn’t come forward before. I was a coward. I felt, at 25, if I revealed what a big celebrity with a seemingly family-oriented persona had done, that I’d be called a liar, like many of the victims have been. I was afraid and I was embarrassed.”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Marcella Tate

Age: 67

Occupation: former model and actress

Alleged Assault: 1975

Tate met Cosby at a Chicago nightclub, through a friend, in 1975. One day, Cosby called Tate and asked her to pick him up at the airport. She did, and when he got in the car, Cosby asked if she’d take him to the Playboy Mansion, where he said he was staying. Cosby invited her inside for a glass of wine. Tate agreed, and, once inside, Cosby handed her a drink. The next thing Tate remembers is waking up next to a naked Cosby in bed. She doesn’t remember how she got home. She came forward in April 2015. “I understood at the time that it was wrong, and I didn’t really know what. I pushed it down and it resided in a very private place. It affects your trust with other people. You push it down and you don’t deal with it.”

« Back to Article
Read her story
LINDA BROWN,67. Alleged assault: 1969.
Read her story
KAYA THOMPSON,44. Alleged assault: late 1980s.
Read her story
TAMARA GREEN. Alleged assault: early 1970s.
×

Name: Linda Brown

Age: 67

Occupation: former model

Alleged Assault: 1969

Cosby went out with a 21-year-old Brown after Brown’s modeling agent arranged it. Brown saw Cosby perform, and they went to dinner afterward. Cosby said he would take Brown home, but before he dropped her off, he said he needed to make a short detour to his hotel room because he had a gift for her. At the hotel room, he handed her a record and a soda, asking if she’d wait while he made a phone call. She took a sip of the soda and blacked out. She woke up in bed, naked, where she says Cosby began to sexually assault her. She came forward in February 2015. “ I felt like a real-life blow-up doll for him. I kept it a secret because I was so ashamed and embarrassed about allowing something this horrible to happen to me. Originally I thought I was the only one to fall into that trap. When I realized that not only wasn’t I the only one, but he did this to many, many women, I felt the need to come forward and help report them because there is strength in numbers.”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Kaya Thompson

Age:

Occupation: former writer

Alleged Assault: late 1980s

17-year-old Thompson was an aspiring model who came to New York City from Maryland to connect with an agency. Within an hour of arriving at the agency, she was sent to Kaufman Astoria Studios to meet with Cosby on the set of The Cosby Show. Cosby offered to mentor her, and he spoke to her parents, assuring them that he’d guide Thompson as she built her modeling career. “I looked at him as a father figure,” she says. However, uneasiness began to creep into Thompson’s relationship with Cosby, she says. She tried to break off contact with the comedian, but in her last confrontation with him, Cosby forced himself on her. She came forward publicly in March 2015, although she had been a Jane Doe in the Andrea Constand lawsuit.

“He knew I was pretty much broken down. He pointed to a bottle of Lubriderm and told me to get it. I gave him a hand job. I went to leave, and, completely unsolicited, he gave me $700.”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Tamara Green

Occupation: attorney

Alleged Assault: early 1970s

Green met Cosby through a mutual friend in Los Angeles. Cosby asked Green, an aspiring singer and model at the time, to help him raise money for a new club the comedian wanted to open. One day, Green didn’t feel well, and she phoned Cosby to tell him she couldn’t help him. Cosby convinced her to grab lunch at Café Figaro, telling Green she’d feel better after she ate. At the restaurant, he offered Green red and gray pills. He told her that they were over-the-counter cold medicine. Green swallowed the pills. Soon after, she began to feel dizzy, and the two left the restaurant together. Cosby drove Green to her apartment where he undressed himself and began to undress her. He began rubbing her body. He masturbated while assaulting her through digital penetration. Green struggled, saying repeatedly, “You’re going to have to kill me.” Cosby put two $100 bills on the coffee table before he left Green’s apartment. Green came forward in 2005, and signed onto Andrea Constand’s lawsuit, not as a Jane Doe, but in her own name. She was the second woman to publicly come forward. “From the first day until this day, I have told everyone who would sit still long enough. If it comes up at all — last year, I sold a truck to a fella, and I remember sitting in the cab of the truck telling the story, and him looking at me like I had two heads.”

« Back to Article

This project began six months ago, when we started contacting the then-30 women who had publicly claimed Cosby assaulted them, and it snowballed in the same way that the initial accusations did: First two women signed on, then others heard about it and joined in, and so on. Just a few days before the story was published, we photographed the final two women, bringing our total to 35. “I’m no longer afraid,” said Chelan Lasha, who came forward late last year to say that Cosby had drugged her when she was 17. “I feel more powerful than him.”

Accompanying this photo essay is a compilation of the interviews with these women, a record of trauma and survival — the memories that remain of the decades-old incidents. All 35 were interviewed separately, and yet their stories have remarkable similarities, in everything from their descriptions of the incidents to the way they felt in the aftermath. Each story is awful in its own right. But the horror is multiplied by the sheer volume of seeing them together, reading them together, considering their shared experience. The women have found solace in their number — discovering that they hadn’t been alone, that there were others out there who believed them implicitly, with whom they didn’t need to be afraid of sharing the darkest details of their lives. They are scattered all over the country — ten different states are represented — and most of them had no contact with their fellow accusers until recently. But since reading about each other’s stories in the news, or finding one another on social media, or meeting in person at the photo shoots arranged by New York, many of the women have forged a bond. It is, as Tarshis calls it, “a sorrowful sisterhood.” ■

Testimony

The Incidents

“My agent said we’ve been contacted by a really, really big person in the entertainment industry who’s interested in mentoring promising young talent. I find out it’s Bill Cosby. I had the understanding I was going to be receiving private acting coaching from him. This was the opportunity of a lifetime. A driver would pick me up, my agent was paying for it. That made it all very, very professional. The door opens, and there stands Cosby. He’s in his sweats and very casual, very friendly. I had a monologue prepared. He seemed unimpressed. He said, ‘Let’s try a cold read,’ so he pulls out a script. The scene was set in a bar; the character was someone who was inebriated. He poured a glass of white wine. And he said, use this as a prop — now, that means you’re going to have to sip on it, of course. I really don’t remember much, except waking up in his bedroom. He was naked, and he was forcing himself into my mouth.” —Heidi Thomas

“I was introduced to Bill Cosby through my modeling agent. She said that Cosby wanted to see me. Which I thought was obviously for the show. I was told there was going to be a dinner, and when I got there, no one ever arrived. He asked me if I wanted a glass of wine; I took a few sips. It had a horrible taste. And I started not feeling well. He helped me up by my underarms with both hands. He walked me into the next room, where there was a mirror on the wall, and he told me to look at myself. Something was wrong with me. And then he took my right hand, and he put it behind my back. I remember seeing semen on the floor. And I felt some liquid on my hand. That was when I knew something sexual was going on.” —Jewel Allison

 “He took my roommate and me out to dinner. It was this new hip steak restaurant on the strip near the Whiskey a Go Go called Sneaky Pete’s. He was chatting her up and trying to charm her. And he reached across and put a pill next to my wineglass and said, ‘Here, this will make you feel better,’ and he gave her one. I wasn’t really thinking. My son had recently died. I thought, Great, me feel better? You bet. So I took the pill and washed it down with some red wine. And then he reached across and put another pill in my mouth and gave her one. Just after I took the second pill, my face was, like, face-in-plate syndrome, and I just said, ‘I wanna go home.’ He said he would drive us home. We went up this elevator. I sat down, and lay my head back, just fighting nausea. I looked around and he was sitting next to my roommate on the love seat with this very predatory look on his face. She was completely unconscious. I could hear the words in my head, but I couldn’t form words with my mouth, because I was so drugged out. He got up and came over, and he sat down and unzipped his fly. He had me give him oral sex, and then he stood me up, turned me over, did me doggy style, and walked out. Just as he got to the door, I said, ‘How do we get out of here, how do we get home?’ And he said, ‘Call a cab.’ ” —Victoria Valentino

Read her story
SUNNI WELLES,66. Alleged assaults: mid-1960s.
Read her story
THERESE SERIGNESE,58. Alleged assault: 1976.
×

Name: Sunni Welles

Age: 66

Occupation: former actress and singer

Alleged Assault: mid-1960s

Welles first met Cosby when she was a child. Her mother was a talent agent and knew the comedian. Welles was 17 and an aspiring singer when she ran into Cosby on the set of I Spy. He invited her to a jazz club. Cosby ordered drinks soon after they arrived. Everything became a blur. She woke up in a strange apartment, naked and alone. The comedian told Welles she had drunk too much Champagne — though she says she remembered only drinking her Coke — and he brought her to the apartment so she could sleep it off. Welles took him at his word and accepted another invitation to a magic show. Again, her memories of the night disappeared, and she woke up naked. She never saw Bill Cosby again. She came forward in March 2015. “It really affected my trust. My mother didn't believe me initially, either. You've been hurt to a level that a lot of people don't really understand. Still, to this day.”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Therese Serignese

Age: 58

Occupation: registered nurse

Alleged Assault: 1976

Cosby came up behind Serignese, put his arm around her, and asked, “Will you marry me?” They were near the Las Vegas Hilton, and Cosby invited Serignese to his show at the hotel. Afterward, she met Cosby in a room backstage. He asked her to swallow two pills and she obeyed. She remembers being bent over, Cosby forcing himself on her from behind. She came forward in November 2014. “For all those years it was silence. It’s going to be some time to work through all of it in this new, open way.”

« Back to Article
Read her story
BETH FERRIER,56. Alleged assault: mid-1980s.
Read her story
CARLA FERRIGNO. Alleged assault: 1967.
×

Name: Beth Ferrier

Age: 56

Occupation: former model, flight attendant, and special-education teacher

Alleged Assault: circa 1984

Ferrier met Cosby through her agent. They began a consensual affair that lasted for several months. The couple broke up, but a few weeks after their split Cosby invited Ferrier to his show at a Denver nightclub. He asked her backstage, and when she got to his dressing room, the comedian offered Ferrier a cappuccino. She drank it and passed out a few minutes later. She woke up alone with her bra unhooked in the back of her car. Ferrier was one of the first women to join Andrea Constand’s lawsuit as a Jane Doe in 2005.

“It’s still like a slap in the face until we actually have our day in court and help the others who are getting to go to court, or we get the statute of limitations to change. It makes me really angry. I can’t feel happiness. I felt very sad and alone. But I’m not afraid of him anymore.”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Carla Ferrigno

Occupation: former Playboy bunny

Alleged Assault: 1967

Ferrigno met a man at Los Angeles International Airport who asked her out to dinner. She went, and before the date was over, the man mentioned that he and Cosby were good friends. He asked Ferrigno if she wanted to go to Cosby’s house with him that night. She drove with her date to Cosby’s Beverly Hills home, where she met the comedian and his wife, Camille. They went to a movie, Cosby sitting next to her. After the movie, the group went back to Cosby’s house to play pool. Cosby offered Ferrigno a cocktail. She refused it. They continued their pool game, but soon Ferrigno realized that Camille had left the room. Ferrigno’s date disappeared next, just as they finished up their game. She asked Cosby where the man had gone. He brushed off her question. Ferrigno went to put the cue back when Cosby rushed her. He gripped her and kissed her. Ferrigno sprinted out of the room. “I never spoke to anyone again about this,” she says. She opened up about the incident publicly in November 2014.

“In 2005, I heard on the radio a woman who was crying and talking about how she was molested by Bill Cosby. I listened to it. That was when I said to myself, ‘This was a setup. This is a setup.’ I never thought of this before. That guy must have been like a pimp for him.”

« Back to Article

“Bill had been a friend. I had had dinner with his wife on one or two different occasions, I had worked with him, I had known him for many, many years, and he never made a pass at me. So when this happened to me, I was really, really shocked. I just couldn’t understand what was wrong with him. Had he lost his mind? When I came out of the bathroom, he said to me, ‘Okay, come on, let’s go. They’re waiting for us.’ He was behaving like a person that I had never met before in my life.” —Kathy McKee

“At 17, my agent introduced me to Bill Cosby, who was going to mentor me and take me to the next level of my career. Over the course of the next year, I was drugged half the time when I was with him and would come out of a delusional experience going, ‘Whoa, what was that?’ He would say, ‘Well, I needed to undress you and wash your clothes because you got drunk and made a fool of yourself.’ Do you remember the Jaycee Dugard story? She pretty much could have climbed over the fence any time she wanted to but was just so broken down and couldn’t think straight. I felt like a prisoner; I felt I was kidnapped and hiding in plain sight. I could have walked down any street of Manhattan at any time and said, ‘I’m being raped and drugged by Bill Cosby,’ but who the hell would have believed me? Nobody, nobody. I was invited down to Atlantic City to see his show and had a very confusing night where I was completely drugged and my luggage was missing. When I called the concierge to find out where my luggage was, Cosby went ballistic. He slammed the phone down and said, ‘What the hell are you doing, letting the whole hotel know I have a 19-year-old girl in my hotel suite?’ The next morning, he summoned me down to his room and yelled at me that I needed to have discretion. He threw me down on the bed and he put his forearm under my throat. He straddled me, and he took his belt buckle off. The clanking of the belt buckle, I’ll never forget.” —Barbara Bowman

Read her story
JANICE DICKINSON,60. Alleged assault: 1982.
×

Name: Janice Dickinson

Age: 60

Occupation: model

Alleged Assault: 1982

Cosby invited then-28-year-old Dickinson to Lake Tahoe, saying he had a possible acting opportunity for her. They dined together, and he gave her a pill to take with a glass of wine. The next morning, she woke up and remembered Cosby climbing on top of her. Her clothes were off, and there was semen between her legs. Dickinson came forward in 2014. “I woke up the next morning after the incident with my entire life altered forever, knowing full well that Bill Cosby had raped me the previous evening. I held this inside of my soul for years and years and years. I have been brutally and catastrophically, traumatically altered forever.”

« Back to Article

“I had a terrible headache, and I said, ‘Bill, do you have some Tylenol? I have a mother of a headache.’ And he said to me, ‘I have something stronger.’ And I said, ‘You know I don’t do drugs.’ He said, ‘You’re one of my best friends. Would I hurt you?’ And I believed him. All I remember is taking the pill; I don’t remember going to bed. But I do remember waking up in a fog and opening my eyes, and I had no clothes on, and there was Bill’s friend totally naked in bed with me. He started to laugh and smile, and he said, ‘Oh, did you have a good time?’ I said, ‘What the fuck happened? Do you always eff a dead person?’ I got my clothes on and I walked out. And Bill said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘What the eff did you give me?’ He said, ‘Oh, you had a bad headache, you were in so much pain. I gave you a Quaalude.’ I was hurt with Bill more than angry at his friend. Bill let him take advantage of me. That kills me. That’s why I know the stories of what he did to the other women are true, because if he didn’t have the respect for me, who was really a close friend, then he could do that to anybody he didn’t know very well.” —Joyce Emmons

Read her story
LOUISA MORITZ,69. Alleged assault: 1971.
Read her story
KACEY(name has been changed). Alleged assault: 1996.
×

Name: Louisa Moritz

Age: 69

Occupation: actress

Alleged Assault: 1971

Moritz was getting ready to appear on the Tonight Show when someone opened the door of her dressing room. Cosby stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He stood above Moritz and unzipped his pants. He pushed his penis into her mouth. “It was automatic. It was like he did this with everyone that was on a show with him backstage. I couldn’t push him away. He was Mr. Cosby. He moved himself back and forth, and my head was on his penis at all times. Finally, they called my name. I was supposed to be out, but he wouldn’t let me go. He rushed out and came out on my call, and he said, ‘I am Louisa Moritz,’ and got a huge laugh, which was my laugh I was supposed to get. I don’t remember if they introduced me again. I was a zombie. But I sat down and the show went on. I didn’t look at him. He didn’t look at me.”

« Back to Article
×

Name: “Kacey"

Occupation: project manager

Alleged Assault: 1996

Kacey worked for Cosby’s personal-appearance agent at William Morris. Her professional relationship with the comedian became friendlier over time — he would check in about her life, her family, her future. Cosby eventually approached Kacey to say that he wanted to work with her on a new television show that was in development. He invited Kacey to dinner and insisted she read through a scene that ended in a kiss. They parted awkwardly, but later she agreed to meet him at his bungalow at the Bel Air Hotel for lunch. Cosby opened the door in a robe and slippers. During lunch, he pestered her, saying she needed to relax, and tried to hand her a large white pill. Kacey repeated that she was fine, but Cosby persisted. When she came to, she was in bed, Cosby next to her.

“I really felt for all those years that it was just me, that I was alone. With all of the other women coming forward, it just really felt — this is the right time. It’s okay. I can step out of this door that I’ve been trapped behind.”

« Back to Article

The Aftermath

“I told my supervisor at the Playboy Club what he did to me, and you know what she said to me? She said: ‘You do know that that’s Hefner’s best friend, right?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ She says to me: ‘Nobody’s going to believe you. I suggest you shut your mouth.’ ” —PJ Masten

“People often these days say, ‘Well, why didn’t you take it to the police?’ Andrea Constand went to the police in 2005 — how’d it work out for her? Not at all. In 2005, Bill Cosby still had control of the media. In 2015, we have social media. We can’t be disappeared. It’s online and can never go away.” —Tamara Green

Read her story
CHELAN LASHA,46. Alleged assault: 1986.
×

Name: Chelan Lasha

Age: 46

Occupation: former model, dietician

Alleged Assault: 1986

Lasha met Cosby in Las Vegas in 1986. The 17-year-old high-school student worked at the Hilton Las Vegas but wanted to pursue a modeling career, so her stepmother sent a letter and a photo of Lasha to the comedian. Cosby called Lasha’s family, inviting her and her grandmother to his show, also at the Hilton. Cosby asked Lasha up to his suite, where he promised to introduce her to an agent from the Ford Modeling Agency. In his room, Cosby handed Lasha a blue pill — he said it was an antihistamine for her cold — and a double shot of Amaretto. Cosby asked her to put on a hotel robe and wet her hair to prepare for the modeling agent’s arrival. Lasha says someone came to the room and snapped a few photos, but quickly left. Alone again with Cosby, Lasha says the comedian led her to the bedroom and gave her another shot of Amaretto. She lay down, and then he climbed in bed beside her. She remembers him humping her leg, grunting. Then she blacked out. She woke up more than 13 hours later. Cosby stood above her and clapped his hands, shouting, “Daddy says wake up.” He handed her $1,500 and told her to buy something nice for herself and for her grandmother. She came forward in December 2014. “I used to fear for my life because of the type of influence that he had. And I would cry all the time, all the time. After that, I didn’t know who to trust and who not to trust. I have nightmares. I wouldn’t let my children watch The Cosby Show because I would cry.”

« Back to Article

“I had a few moments where I tried to come forward. But I was just too scared, and I also had the extra burden of not really wanting to take an African-American man down.—Jewel Allison

“I didn’t realize that I had been raped. Back then, rape was done in an alleyway with somebody holding a knife to your throat that you didn’t know. There was no date rape back then. I just knew that something horrible had happened. But I couldn’t put a name to it. The difference between this and that rape in the dark alley is that his face would be before me every week on TV. People would mention a joke that he said: ‘Wasn’t that funny?’ And all the while, my stomach would just be churning.” —Joan Tarshis  

“In 1975, it wasn’t an issue that was even discussed. Rape was being beaten up in a park. I understood at the time that it was wrong, but I just internalized it and dealt with it and pushed it down, and it resided in a very private place. It affects your trust with other people.” —Marcella Tate

Read her story
HELEN HAYES,80. Alleged assault: 1973.
Read her story
HEIDI THOMAS,55. Alleged assault: 1984.
Read her story
PJ MASTEN,65. Alleged assault: 1979.
×

Name: Helen Hayes

Age: 80

Occupation: former legal secretary

Alleged Assault:1973

Hayes and two of her friends attended Clint Eastwood’s Celebrity Tennis Tournament in Pebble Beach, California, in 1973. She met Bill Cosby there, and he followed Hayes and her friends around all day. They went out to dinner that evening, but kept switching restaurants to avoid Cosby. He caught up with them at the last place, where he reached over Hayes and grabbed her breast. She came forward in December 2014.

“I just stewed about it for years, and for years no one cared.”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Heidi Thomas

Age: 55

Occupation: music teacher

Alleged Assault: 1984

Heidi Thomas was 24 when she got a call from her agent, who told her that a big shot in the entertainment industry — “Mr. C.” — wanted to mentor her. Thomas flew out to Reno to meet with him. From the airport, Cosby’s driver brought her to a ranch where the comedian was staying. There, Cosby asked Thomas to read a script for him and he assigned her the role of a drunken person. He gave her a drink as a prop, and he encouraged her to take a sip. She woke up to find Cosby naked and trying to force her to have oral sex with him. She came forward in February 2015. “My first thought was: How did I get here? What did I say? What did I do? This is so unprofessional and I hope I don’t throw up on his bed because that would be really bad. The next snapshot I have was him telling me we were going to do this again, and I remember getting up and saying something to the effect of ‘This isn’t why I came here.’ It’s such a haze. I now know why I was so foggy. I remember the door when I closed it, it sounded so loud. I thought, “Oh my gosh, I just slammed the door on Bill Cosby.” The idea that I had just been assaulted didn’t even occur to me.

I was absolutely certain I had done something. Why couldn’t I remember? What did I say? At the time nobody had ever heard of a date-rape drug, no one had ever heard of anything like that. I’ve now talked with several of the women who went through this, though, and it’s so similar. We lost days worth of stuff.”

« Back to Article
×

Name: PJ Masten

Age: 65

Occupation: former Playboy bunny and hotel executive, now owns a small moving company

Alleged Assault: 1979

Masten knew Cosby through her job at the Playboy club in Chicago, where she worked as a bunny manager. One day they had lunch, and the next day Cosby invited her out to dinner. She met him at the Whitehall Hotel, where he was smoking and drinking with other men. He offered her a cocktail — Grand Marnier on the rocks. She woke up in Cosby’s bed, bruised and naked, the comedian beside her. The next day he sent her a four-foot ficus tree with a note: “Friendships have to be groomed like this tree.” She came forward in 2014. “I’ve overcome a lot, but this rape brought me to my knees. I think the hardest part was that I didn’t have control of myself. I would never have allowed that to happen, never. To do that to — to violate another human being, and violently. I had to go to work the next day. He kept calling and calling, ‘Why did you leave? Why did you leave?’ Are you kidding me? I told my supervisor what he did to me. She said, ‘You do know that’s [Hugh] Hefner’s best friend, right?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ She says to me, ‘Nobody’s going to believe you. I suggest you shut your mouth.’”

« Back to Article
Read her story
SARITA BUTTERFIELD,59. Alleged assault: 1977.
Read her story
JANICE BAKER-KINNEY,57. Alleged assault: 1982.
Read her story
AUTUMN BURNS,68. Alleged assault: circa 1970.
×

Name: Sarita Butterfield

Age: 59

Occupation: former Playboy bunny

Alleged Assault: 1977

At 22, Sarita Butterfield modeled in the November 1977 issue of Playboy. Butterfield says Cosby saw her pictures in the magazine and called her up, inviting her to his Massachusetts home for Christmas Eve dinner. He paid for the plane ticket and for the driver waiting for her at the airport. Cosby had many guests over that night, but he cornered Butterfield in his guesthouse. He groped her breasts and tried to kiss her. Butterfield fended him off, but she had to wait until the next morning to take a plane out. She came forward in November 2014.

“I tried to sit down and imagine him drugging and raping the other girls while they were under the influence of the drug he put in their drink. I'm not going to say that I was surprised. I know what he did to me and I know the look on his face. What happened to that nice man?”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Janice Baker-Kinney

Age: 57

Occupation: broadcast-television stage manager

Alleged Assault: 1982

Baker-Kinney bartended at Harrah’s, where Cosby was performing. Regular staff often mingled with Harrah’s headliners at after-parties, so she didn’t think it was unusual when her friend invited her to a pizza party at Cosby’s. When Baker-Kinney and her friend arrived, no one else was there. Cosby gave her a pill, and then he gave her another one. She swallowed both. They started playing a game of backgammon when Baker-Kinney noticed the board started to go in and out of focus. Baker-Kinney next remembers waking up on a couch, her pants unzipped and her blouse unbuttoned. Her friend had just left, and Cosby stuck his hand inside her shirt. He carried her upstairs. The next morning she woke up to Cosby stroking her stomach. They were both naked. Before she left, he told her, “This is between me and you.” She came forward with her story in April 2015. “I knew my statute of limitations had run out, so I was willing to offer my support. I spoke to my family about it first, because my son didn't know about it. They said if it could help other women, then we encourage you to do it. ”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Autumn Burns

Age: 68

Occupation: former casino employee

Alleged Assault: 1970

Burns worked as a game starter in a Las Vegas casino, where she met Cosby. Burns also acted and modeled, and Cosby indicated to her that he could help her break into the industry. He invited her to his show and gave her money to gamble. She attended at least one event with him. One night, he handed her $500 and asked her to come up to his suite after his performance. Cosby gave Burns a Scotch on the rocks. She felt as if she were losing control. Cosby called her to the bedroom, where she found him naked in bed. He told her to sit on the bed, then forced her to have oral and penetrative sex. She came forward in April 2015. “Seeing bits and pieces on the news and then overhearing some women talk about the girls in a negative way — it infuriated me. They were saying that they were doing it just for publicity; they must be getting all kinds of money. I interrupted them. ‘I’m one of them,’ I said.”

« Back to Article

“Survivors of rape have a very difficult time having intimate relationships. I was in my 20s. I could never have a real relationship. It was like a black, disgusting tumor—a secret tumor.” —PJ Masten

When I see a Jell-O pudding, it comes flooding back. Bill Cosby, that encounter, that one time, played a major factor in the direction my life took, toward the dark side.” —Sammie Mays

“Eighteen is very young. It took me a long, long time to come to terms with the fact that it was him, it wasn’t me. Life has not been easy for me. I had addiction problems as I got older.” —Linda Joy Traitz

“People go, ‘Why haven’t you gotten over it?’ But you might as well ask a combat soldier why he doesn’t forget the Battle of Guadalcanal. There was someone trying to harm him, someone trying to kill him, and they never get over it, they just learn how to cope with it.” —Tamara Green

Read her story
LILI BERNARD. Alleged assault: early 1990s.
×

Name: Lili Bernard

Occupation: artist and actor

Alleged Assault: early 1990s

Cosby started mentoring Bernard before she guest-starred on The Cosby Show in the early 1990s. “I looked upon him as a father figure,” she says. “He often said to me, ‘You're one of my kids, Bernard.’” Later, Cosby drugged her drink, and raped her. During their last contact, on The Cosby Show set in 1992, he told her, “As far as I’m concerned, Bernard, you’re dead. Do you hear me? You're dead. You don’t exist." Afterward, she became suicidal. She came forward in May 2015. “For the last 23-plus years I’ve been living with a tremendous sense of fear. Being able to relinquish that fear was freeing for me, and the only reason I was able to do that was so many other women had done it before me, and I felt safe.”

« Back to Article

The Avalanche

“I read Barbara Bowman’s piece in the Washington Post, how no one believed her, and I said, ‘This is it. I have to say something now. I have to stand up and say, Yes. Somebody else does believe you, because it happened to me.’ It was sort of like we were yodeling in a canyon and set off an avalanche. I knew I wasn’t ever gonna receive any money. I certainly didn’t want to be remembered as the woman that Bill Cosby raped. But I just felt so vindicated that I wasn’t alone.” —Joan Tarshis

“How would it benefit any of us? It doesn’t. We’re telling the story because we can’t hold it inside anymore.” —Kathy McKee

“I came forward to offer my support as a witness. I knew my statute of limitations had run out. When only one or two women came out, a couple of years ago, they were ridiculed more. It’s hard to not believe the numbers now.” —Janice Baker-Kinney

Read her story
BARBARA BOWMAN,48. Alleged assaults: 1985–1987.
Read her story
SAMMIE MAYS,57. Alleged assault: 1987.
Read her story
JOAN TARSHIS,67. Alleged assault: 1969.
×

Name: Barbara Bowman

Age: 48

Occupation: artist; ambassador with PAVE (Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment)

Alleged Assault:1985 to 1987

Bowman was a 17-year-old model and an aspiring actress when her agent introduced her to Cosby in Denver in 1985. Cosby offered to mentor Bowman. The comedian flew her to celebrity events and performances across the country. He eventually moved her to New York City and then Long Island, while she took acting classes in the city. In New York, Cosby drugged and raped Bowman repeatedly; she didn’t realize for two years what was happening. “There were times when I was completely confused,” she says, “and there were other times that were very clear.” In 2005, Bowman joined Andrea Constand’s lawsuit as a supporting witness.

“It was a predatory grooming process that was very subtle and very manipulative. He was America’s favorite dad. I went into this thinking he was going to be my dad. He zoned right in on my insecurities. He convinced me that he was going to take care of me like a father, that he loved me like a daughter. To wake up half-dressed and raped by the man that said he was going to love me like a father? That’s pretty sick.

I was invited down to Atlantic City to see his show. It was a very confusing night where I was completely drugged and my luggage was missing. When I called the concierge to find out where my luggage was, Cosby went ballistic. He said, ‘What the hell are you doing, letting the whole hotel know I have a 19-year-old girl in my hotel suite?’

The next morning, I woke up undressed. I didn’t know what had happened. He called me on the phone and summoned me down to his room. He yelled at me that I had embarrassed him by being at the hotel, and that I needed to have discretion. Then he pounced on me. He threw me down on the bed and he put his forearm under my throat and started choking me. He straddled me, and he took his belt buckle off. The clanking of the belt buckle, I’ll never forget. It was jammed, and he was trying to unzip his pants. I was able to wiggle out. It was like a switch went off, like somebody flicked a switch and he suddenly came to reality and realized that he was really going to make a bigger scene than I had ever made. He did not rape me. That was it. He just decided I was too much work. He wrote me off, he kicked me out. I was done. When it was all over, the words that came out of Cosby’s mouth were: ‘I better never, ever see your face or hear your name again.’”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Sammie Mays

Age: 57

Occupation: writer

Alleged Assault: 1987

Mays met Cosby at a television-industry conference in the late 1980s, which she covered as a young journalist. She approached him for an interview. He suggested they chat on his way back to his hotel room. The comedian then invited Mays up to his suite and served her a drink. She took a couple of big sips. All went blank until she woke up, slouched in the same chair, spit dribbling down her chin. Her bra was askew. Cosby stood above her. Mays was confused and rushed out of the suite. On her way out, she apologized for wasting the comedian’s time. Mays came forward in May 2015.“One other thing besides being survivors, we were career-oriented women. That’s how Bill Cosby gained access to each of us.”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Joan Tarshis

Age: 67

Occupation: journalist and publicist

Alleged Assault: 1969

19-year-old Tarshis was starting a career as a comedy writer when she met Cosby in Los Angeles through mutual friends. The comedian asked Tarshis if she’d be interested in working on some material with him. She joined Cosby at his bungalow. Cosby served Tarshis a Bloody Mary topped with a beer. She drank some, and the next thing she remembered was Cosby undressing her on his couch. She told him she had a yeast infection, hoping to fend him off. Cosby grabbed her head and forced her to perform oral sex on him. Back in New York, Tarshis got a phone call from Cosby, inviting her to his show on Long Island. Her mother answered the phone, and Tarshis didn't want to explain to her mother why she was reluctant to attend. She had a drink or two at his New York City hotel. Before she left, she saw vials of pills in a man’s shaving kit. They went to the show. "It hit me like a sledgehammer," she says. She felt like she was about to pass out, and she had the driver take her back to the limo. The next thing she remembers is waking up in bed the next morning with Cosby, naked and sore. She came forward in November 2014. "It was really painful, the way he was holding onto my hair. I couldn't get away. I never wrote comedy again.” “I couldn't put a name to it. I didn't say accosted. I didn't know what to call it. The difference between this and somebody else’s rape in the dark alley is that his face would be before me every week on TV. Every once in a while, my parents saying, ‘Oh, come here, look and see the Bill Cosby Show, or see The Cosby Show.’ People would mention a joke that he said, Wasn't that funny? All the while my stomach would just be churning, saying, ‘You don't know the man.’”

« Back to Article
Read her story
MARGIE SHAPIRO,58. Alleged assault: 1975.
Read her story
JOYCE EMMONS,70. Alleged assault: circa 1979.
Read her story
REBECCA LYNN NEAL,60. Alleged assault: 1986.
×

Name: Margie Shapiro

Age: 58

Occupation: former locksmith

Alleged Assault: 1975

Shapiro worked at a doughnut shop in Santa Monica. Around 5 a.m. on a November morning, a gold car pulled up to the shop. Bill Cosby got out, came to the window, and ordered dozens of doughnuts. He invited Shapiro and her boss to the set of Mother, Jugs & Speed. Afterward, Cosby invited Shapiro to a dinner party at his house, later that evening. Cosby picked her up and brought her to his rental home. It was just the two of them there. Cosby told her his party had been rescheduled, and asked if she’d like to go to Hugh Hefner’s mansion instead. They drove past the mansion and went to a small house full of games: pinball machines, a pool table. Cosby challenged Shapiro to a few pinball games, and then to a competition: whoever lost the next game would need to swallow a small pill. After Shapiro took the pill, she passed out. She woke up in bed, naked, with Cosby inside her. Cosby took her back to his home, and then had his driver drop off Shapiro at her home. She came forward in March 2015. “I learned that no matter what a person projects, especially a celebrity, it’s not necessarily a reflection of their true personality.”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Joyce Emmons

Age: 70

Occupation: former comedy-club manager

Alleged Assault: 1979-1980

Emmons managed a comedy club and became friends with Cosby. They had known each other for about two-and-a-half years when Emmons and her friend went out to a club with Cosby and one of his friends. Emmons had a headache and she asked Cosby for a Tylenol. He told her he had something stronger. Emmons took the pill and woke up in bed, naked, with Cosby’s friend. She doesn’t remember the night. “I did not say Bill did me,” Emmons says. “I don’t know what he did to me. His friend did it.” She came forward in November 2014 because she wanted people to know the name of the drug he used on women: Quaaludes. “He wanted to show me his top dresser drawer where he kept all the drugs, if I ever wanted to do any. I said, ‘Bill, I don’t do drugs.’ He kept it there for his friends. He was clean. He gave it to the women that he was doing. I never knew what he did to women about raping them. How could I? He’s not going to rape someone in front of me.”

“All I remember is taking the pill; I don’t remember going to bed. But I do remember waking up in a fog and opening my eyes, and I had no clothes on, and I had clothes on when I took the pill. I had no clothes on, and there was Bill’s friend, totally naked in bed with me. I didn’t share my room with him, so he came in there. I don’t know how, or what happened. I looked at him, and he looked at me, and he started to laugh and smile, and he said, ‘Oh, did you have a good time?’ I said, ‘What the fuck happened? Do you always F a dead person?’ Because that’s what I was. I was a dead person at that time. He didn’t say anything, I grabbed my blanket and went and took a shower. I got my clothes on. Bill said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m leaving.’ I said, ‘What the F did you give me?’ He said, ‘Oh, you had a bad headache. You were in so much pain. I gave you a Quaalude.’”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Rebecca Lynn Neal

Age: 60

Occupation: massage therapist

Alleged Assault:1986

Neal worked as a massage therapist in a health club that Cosby often visited. He kept asking her to come to his show, and they set a date and planned to have dinner. Cosby had been complaining about his sore back and shoulder, so she agreed to help stretch him out after the show. She went to the show and to dinner — but only Cosby ate. He ordered her a shot of Stoli and told her to drink it, which she did. After that, she felt disoriented and was having trouble walking. Cosby led her from the restaurant back to his dressing room. She sat down and he began pulling down her pants. Then he had sex with her after she told him to stop. “I never saw him again in the health club or anywhere else.” Neal came out publicly in January 2015. “I felt helpless and I couldn't stop him. He told me to calm down, he wasn't going to hurt me. And then he started having sex with me, and was talking about how an orgasm is like a thermostat, building pressure. Then it was over. He rushed me out of his room and told me to call him the next time he was in town.”

« Back to Article

“I went online one morning, just to check my email. The Yahoo page came up, and there was something about Cosby, this thing with Hannibal Buress. And all of a sudden, something just hit me. Anger. Son of a bitch! You know, a woman can be not believed for 30 years. But it takes one man? To make a joke about it? That fucking pissed me off so bad. Suddenly I’m thinking, Who do I contact?” Victoria Valentino

“I have a friend who is a detective for a police department. She’s the one who pushed me to file a report. My husband was like, ‘No, I don’t want anybody to know, we don’t want to expose you, I don’t want people saying bad things.’ But my friend said, ‘You gotta do it for you.’ ” —Lise-Lotte Lublin

I saw that there were a lot of negative responses being posted against Barbara Bowman and Joan Tarshis and Tamara Green and Andrea Constand, grouping them in a historical reference to claims that “white women” have made in the past, that weren’t truthful, about being raped by a black man. But unfortunately with this case, I knew that there was a very strong possibility that these women were telling the truth, because I had had my own negative experience with Bill Cosby. And so I just felt like, No, this can’t go in that direction.”—Jewel Allison

Read her story
VICTORIA VALENTINO,72. Alleged assault: 1969.
×

Name: Victoria Valentino

Age: 72

Occupation: former Playboy bunny, musician, actress, registered nurse

Alleged Assault: 1969

Valentino was dining with her roommate at their usual joint, Café Figaro, where Cosby happened to be part owner. He knew that Valentino’s 6-year-old son had recently died, and he told Valentino’s friend that he thought she could use some cheering up. Cosby offered to take them to the steam baths and then out. They accepted the invitation and met Cosby for dinner. “I was just sitting there, letting them talk,” Valentino says. “I was sitting there looking glum, not participating.” Cosby reached across the table and put a pill next to Valentino’s wine glass, and he told her to take it. It would make her feel better, he said. She swallowed the pill, and later another one. Cosby also pushed two pills on Valentino’s friend. Valentino began to feel sick and asked to go home. Cosby said he would drive them, but they both ended up back at his apartment. Valentino passed out. When she awoke, she saw her friend passed out on a couch, Cosby above her. “I mean, you could read what was on his mind while he was looking at her,” Valentino says. “He was like a hawk, like a vulture.” Valentino tried to fight him off her friend. Cosby came after Valentino instead. She came forward in 2014.

“I could hear the words in my head, but I couldn't form words with my mouth because I was so drugged out. I kept reaching for her and he just ignored me. Then he started getting this annoyed look on his face. I kept at it. Finally he got up and came over. He sat down and unzipped his fly and had me give him oral sex. He stood up, turned me over, did me doggy style, and walked out. Just as he got to the door, I was going, ‘How do we get out of here, how do we get home?’ He said, ‘Call a cab.’”

« Back to Article

“The part of it I wasn’t prepared for was the onslaught of women that have been assaulted and them telling me their story because I told mine.” —Beverly Johnson

“I started getting private messages on Facebook from other former Bunnies: ‘He did me too, PJ. He got me too.’ There’s a couple of websites — ‘We believe the women’ — and Cosby sites that we all created. And we talk, all the survivors. We just had the photo shoot. And I said it was one of the greatest experiences I ever had. It was fun. We had great music, great food, we were all dancing and laughing, and yet in L.A., the L.A. group said it was so somber, and everybody was upset. And I said, ‘What, are you kidding? We were celebrating here in New York, baby.’ Our freedom, our freedom! Nothing macabre about that. We’re out.” —PJ Masten

Read her story
JEWEL ALLISON. Alleged assault: late 1980s.
Read her story
LISE-LOTTE LUBLIN,48. Alleged assault: 1989.
Read her story
CINDRA LADD, 67. Alleged assault: 1969.
×

Name: Jewel Allison

Occupation: writer

Alleged Assault: circa 1990

Cosby was in New York City filming the Cosby Show, and asked through Allison’s agent to meet with her. He invited her to his New York City brownstone for dinner, but Allison was the only guest. He offered her a glass of wine. Allison took a few sips. She started to feel sick. She remembers Cosby helping her up, and seeing semen. She became nauseous and ill, and Cosby escorted her to a taxi and sent her home. “I told my closest girlfriend. That was the first person I told. I told family members. I told friends. Maybe about 10 years later or so, I ran into a former model who was with my agency and we compared notes. We started talking about him and she had an incident also, which I can’t talk about because she still hasn’t come forward. I told her then she should never tell anybody. I was trying to protect her.

I had a few moments where I tried to come forward. I’ve picked up the phone more than once over the course of two decades. This is before the women started coming forward in large numbers. But I was just too scared, and I also had the extra burden of not really wanting to take an African-American man down. I’ve always been very closely involved in the black community. And for me to come forward and basically destroy this very positive image of, as few as we have, of African-American men in America, it was just too difficult to do at that time. ”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Lise-Lotte Lublin

Age: 48

Occupation: former model and teacher

Alleged Assault: 1989

23-year-old Lotte-Lublin met Cosby through her modeling agency. She was alone with him in his Las Vegas suite, she thought, to audition for him. He handed her a shot. She declined at first, but eventually relented. He served her another round. Then the drinks hit her. Her last memory is sitting on an end table, Cosby straddling her and stroking her hair, followed by flashes of unfamiliar areas of the hotel suite. She doesn’t remember how she got home. She came forward in February, and fought to change Nevada’s statute of limitations on rape from 4 years to 20. The law takes effect on October 1.

“I was unaware of what Cosby had done until 25 years later. That should have protected me. If a doctor performs surgery on you and leaves a sponge in your body, and then you have detrimental stuff 25 years later and somebody opens you up and finds the sponge, you didn't know it existed. They exposed it. And that’s what happened in my situation.”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Cindra Ladd

Age: 67

Occupation: former entertainment executive, philanthropist

Alleged Assault: 1969

Ladd met Cosby while working for a film producer in New York City. They became friends and would hang out at her apartment or watch television together. One day, they had plans to go to a movie, but Cosby wanted to meet her at his friend’s apartment first. Ladd told Cosby she had a headache, and he offered her some pills that he called a “miracle cure.” She questioned him, but Cosby told her to trust him. She took the pill. Ladd has few memories from the night, but she remembers waking up naked in bed. A mirror hung above her on the ceiling. Cosby wore a terry-cloth bathrobe. She gathered her things, made small talk, and left. She told her roommate, but kept the incident secret for 36 years. She wrote about the incident publicly in January 2015.

The Cosby Show was watched in my house. My daughter liked it; my husband liked it. I would look at it and think, ‘He did that to me.’

“My daughter had her own experience of being raped when she was 15. She was very proud of me when I came forward. I hadn’t told her about my Cosby experience until I wrote the piece. She’s so open and vocal about that subject. There’s much more of an awareness now. Date rape, in my day, there wasn’t such a thing. There was no word for it.”

« Back to Article
Read her story
HELEN GUMPEL,59. Alleged assault: circa 1987.
Read her story
KATHY MCKEE,66. Alleged assault: early 1970s.
×

Name: Helen Gumpel

Age: 59

Occupation: former model and former law-enforcement official

Alleged Assault: 1987

Gumpel had a small guest role on an episode of The Cosby Show. She was invited back to the set for what she thought was an audition for another part on the show. Instead, she was sent to Cosby’s dressing room. The comedian opened the door in a bathrobe and offered her a drink. She rejected his advances. She came forward in February 2015. “It was never a secret. I told people. I even told a big columnist, a gossip columnist, but to tell you the truth, at that time, no one wanted to attack Bill Cosby. He was the No. 1 comedian in the world. He was a massive money-maker, and who would believe someone with no power — a woman with no power?”

« Back to Article
×

Name: Kathy McKee

Age: 66

Occupation: former actress and Vegas showgirl

Alleged Assault: between 1973 and 1974

McKee toured with Sammy Davis Jr., whom she dated, and McKee got to know some of Davis’s friends. McKee had known Cosby for eight years when, after a Detroit show, the comedian invited her back to his hotel room. Cosby opened the door, spun her around, and penetrated her. She came forward in 2014. “I managed to get over to the guest bathroom. I tried to figure out what was happening, what had happened. I was really very confused and shocked and mixed up. It happened so fast. Bill had been a friend. I had worked with him. I had known him for many, many years. He never made a pass at me. So when this happened to me, I just couldn't understand what was wrong with him. Had he lost his mind? Was he on drugs? What the heck was going on?

I'm thinking maybe I'll just slip out the front door and go. Well, he was standing, completely dressed now, and ready to walk out the door. [He] said to me, ‘Okay, come on, let's go. They're waiting for us.’ I don't even think I spoke. I just walked. He opened the door to the suite, and I walked right on out there, and went to the elevator and pressed the button. He’s not talking to me. He was behaving like a person that I had never met before in my life.”

« Back to Article

“Listen, he was America’s favorite dad. I went into this thinking he was going to be my dad. To wake up half-dressed and raped by the man that said he was going to love me like a father? That’s pretty sick. It was hard for America to digest when this came out. And a lot of backlash and a lot denial and a lot of anger.” —Barbara Bowman

“I think his legacy is going to be similar to O.J.’s legacy. When you hear O.  J. Simpson’s name, you don’t think, Oh, great football player. That doesn’t come to mind first. I’m thinking it’s not going to be, Oh, great comedian. It’s going to be, Oh, serial rapist. And that will be our legacy.” —Joan Tarshis

VIEW PORTFOLIO AS A SLIDESHOW
Video: 6 of the Women Tell Their Stories
VICTORIA VALENTINO
LOUISA MORITZ
JOYCE EMMONS
JANICE DICKINSON
BARBARA BOWMAN
LILI BERNARD

Additional reporting by Jen Kirby.

Correction: The article originally mischaracterized a 2006 People report on Cosby’s accusers.

*This article appears in the July 27, 2015 issue of New York Magazine.

VIDEOS: HAIR FOR DICKINSON BY STANTON DUKE SNYDER; MAKEUP FOR DICKINSON BY IGOR SANAEV; MAKEUP FOR FERRIGNO BY STEPHANIE KIM USING FACE ATELIER/EXCLUSIVE ARTISTS MANAGEMENT; STEPHANIE KIM USING CHARLOTTE TILLBURY AND BUMBLE AND BUMBLE/EXCLUSIVE ARTISTS MANAGEMENT (BOWMAN, BERNARD, VALENTINO).

PHOTOGRAPHS: HAIR AND MAKEUP: MIHO SUZUKI USING CHANEL AND BUMBLE AND BUMBLE/ARTISTS AT WILHELMINA (BAKER-KINNEY, BERNARD, BOWMAN, BURNS, FERRIER, GREEN, HAYES, KIRKPATRICK, LASHA, LUBLIN, MCKEE, MORITZ, SERIGNESE, SHAPIRO, STEUER, TATE, THOMAS, TRAITZ, VALENTINO, WELLES); MICHAEL JOHNSON/FACTORY DOWNTOWN (ALLISON, BROWN, BUTTERFIELD, GUMPEL, KACEY, MASTEN, MAYS, TARSHIS, THOMPSON); IGOR SANAEV (DICKINSON); KARMISHA LITTLE (JOHNSON); STEPHANIE KIM USING CHARLOTTE TILLBURY AND BUMBLE AND BUMBLE/EXCLUSIVE ARTISTS MANAGEMENT (BOWMAN); STEPHANIE KIM USING FACE ATELIER/EXCLUSIVE ARTISTS MANAGEMENT (FERRIGNO). PRODUCTION: SOFIA DE GUZMAN AND STEPHANIE WESTCOTT.

BEGIN SLIDESHOW