Bill Cosby Slapped With Defamation Lawsuit by Janice Dickinson

Complaint says model suffered emotional distress when a representative of the comedian said her sexual assault claims were untrue

Bill Cosby Janice Dickinson sbs

Bill Cosby‘s legal woes keep on mounting.

The comedian, who’s been besieged by accusations of sexual assault by dozens of women in recent months, has now been hit with a defamation lawsuit by model Janice Dickinson, who earlier accused Cosby of sexually assaulting her.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, says Dickinson has suffered defamation and emotional distress as the result of Cosby’s representatives denying her claims that the comedian had sexually assaulted her.

“Defendant Cosby knows that he drugged and raped Ms. Dickinson,” say the legal papers obtained by TheWrap. “He knew that calling her rape disclosure a lie was a false statement.”

The suit seeks unspecified damages.

In November, former “America’s Next Top Model” judge Dickinson came forward to claim that Cosby assaulted her in 1982 in Lake Tahoe, adding that the comedian gave her wine and pills that caused her to pass out.

“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,” Dickinson claimed. “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.”

Cosby’s lawyer, Martin Singer, quickly and strongly denied Dickinson’s claims, calling them an “outrageous defamatory lie.”

In a letter to TheWrap at the time, Singer cited a passage from Dickinson’s autobiography and a 2002 interview with the New York Observer, in which Dickinson purportedly claimed that Cosby “blew her off” after dinner because she didn’t sleep with him.

“Her new story claiming that she had been sexually assaulted is a defamatory fabrication,” Singer said.

Dickinson’s lawsuit addresses the autobiography, saying that she was barred from disclosing the rape allegation in the book.

The suit claims that Dickinson has suffered “loss to her reputation, shame, mortification, and hurt feelings,” among other damages.

Cosby has been plagued by scandal since late last year, with woman after woman coming forward to claim that he sexually assaulted them. A common theme of the allegations is that he drugged the women before the assaults.

Cosby’s attorney has publicly denied sexual assault claims leveled at his client. However, Singer has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment on Dickinson’s lawsuit.

Since the scandal erupted, Cosby has suffered several career setbacks, including NBC shelving a sitcom that it was developing as a starring vehicle for the 77-year-old. Netflix likewise postponed a comedy special starring the comedian that was slated to run late last year.

Cosby is also being sued by a trio of accusers — Tamara Green, Therese Serignese and Linda Traitz — who claim that they were defamed by denials made through his representatives.

After a lengthy silence, Cosby vaguely addressed the scandal last week on “Good Morning America,” saying, “I have been in this business over 52 years and I have never seen anything like this.”

The comedian added, “Reality is the situation. And I can’t speak.”

Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.

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