Another woman is accusing celebrity chef Mario Batali of sexual misconduct, detailing an incident where the chef sexually assaulted her at a New York City restaurant in 2005.
“I woke up by myself on the floor. I don’t know where I am, of an empty room, wooden floor, I see broken bottles. The first thing I think is I’ve been drugged. That was the first thing I thought. I’ve been assaulted,” the unnamed woman told Anderson Cooper during an interview on “60 Minutes” Sunday.
“I also did find — I looked on my skirt — there were two areas it looked like DNA. Semen.”
The woman, who worked at Batali’s New York City restaurant Babbo, said Batali invited her to another party at The Spotted Pig restaurant, owned by his friend Ken Friedman, and that things quickly escalated between them.
“It gets completely foggy for me. And this is part of the messy, scary part for me. There is a part where it all disappears,” she said of the incident.
“I remember a moment where I was on his lap, kissing him. Like, he was kissing me. And then I remember throwing up, in a toilet. And that is all.”
The “60 Minutes” segment described many new details of Batali’s behavior with corroborating witnesses including the previously unknown fact that the New York Police Department had opened an investigation into Batali.
“The NYPD is investigating allegations raised in the 60 minutes report,” a spokesperson for the department told TheWrap.
“I vehemently deny the allegation that I sexually assaulted this woman,” said Batali in a statement provided to CBS. The accuser said she never filed a formal police report at the time.
“They tried getting me to file a report. They tried, they tried,” she said .”But I ― you know, a young actress, no resources, no money ― I couldn’t. I―I couldn’t do it.”
Once an icon of the New York City food scene, Batali was undone in December 2017 after Eater published several accusations from women describing incidents of sexual misconduct. In a statement at the time, Batali conceded to “inappropriate behavior,” and was promptly dismissed from his ABC program “The Chew” and his products were removed from Target stores nationwide.