On the heels of allegations he sexually assaulted numerous women, another woman who claims she was raped by Bill Cosby has come forward to bring her encounter with the comedian to light.
In fact, Cosby, one of America’s favorite sitcom fathers, was accused of sexual assault just last week when a woman, Barbara Bowman, detailed how the actor drugged and raped her 30 years ago in a Washington Post article.
In the latest allegations, detailed in an essay on Hollywood Elsewhere, Joan Tarshis, a music industry publicist and journalist, writes that Cosby sexually assaulted her in 1969 when she was just 19-years-old.
“I had flown to Los Angeles from New York to work on a monologue with Godfrey Cambridge. Two women I was staying with were friends of Bill Cosby, and they took me to have lunch with him in his cottage at Universal Studios, where he was shooting The Bill Cosby Show. He was always generous with his food and drinks, though he never drank alcohol. But he always topped my Bloody Mary’s with beer, which he called a ‘redeye.’
“Cosby seemed to take a liking to me, and so I was invited back a few times. I was naturally flattered. I visited the set on my own and he once introduced me to Sidney Poitier as ‘Midget,’ his pet name for me because I was 5’3″.
“One day he asked me to stay after the shooting and work on some material with him. I was even more flattered and thought this would help move my writing career along. In his bungalow he made me a redeye, and I began to tell him about the earthquake Los Angeles had just had and the sound it made. He liked my ideas for an earthquake bit.
“The next thing I remember was coming to on his couch while being undressed. Through the haze I thought I was being clever when I told him I had an infection and he would catch it and his wife would know he had sex with someone. But he just found another orifice to use. I was sickened by what was happening to me and shocked that this man I had idolized was now raping me. Of course I told no one.
Tarshis was assaulted a second time — Cosby used alcohol and drugged the young woman again. She recalls growing into adulthood, watching Cosby’s exaltation and emergence as America’s moral compass.
“It all made me ill, knowing first-hand there was something unbalanced about him. I had heard and/or strongly suspected I was not the only white girl he had drugged and raped but I never had any proof. No one began talking until 2004. And though I knew I should say something, I still felt ashamed. Ashamed that I didn’t earlier.
“In any event now, as more and more of his rape victims have come forward, all telling similar stories, the time is right to join them.”
Cosby has yet to address the allegations. During an interview with NPR’s Scott Simon, Cosby refused to discuss the claims. And following Bowman’s Washington Post article, Cosby’s Nov. 19 appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman was canceled.
His lawyer, John P. Schmitt, has previously said his client would not respond to the claims against him.
SOURCE: Hollywood Elsewhere, Washington Post | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty
