A woman named Joan Tarshis says Bill Cosby drugged and assaulted her twice after she met him when she was 19 years old in 1969, describing his actions as rape. Tarshis appears to be the fifth woman to publicly accuse the comedian of sexual assault. Her allegations were published by the site Hollywood Elsewhere, whose proprietor Jeffrey Wells writes that Tarshis is a friend of his. Tarshis says she was an aspiring comedy writer when she was introduced to Cosby through friends and that he assaulted her once in Los Angeles and once on the East Coast:
When we got to Westbury and he went on, there was no seat for me. I stood in the back of the theater with his chauffeur, feeling insulted that I wasn’t respected enough to be given a reserved seat. But soon after, I remember feeling very, very stoned and asking his chauffeur to take me back to the car. I was having trouble standing up. The next thing I remember was waking up in his bed back at the Sherry, naked. I remember thinking ‘You old shit, I guess you got me this time, but it’s the last time you’ll ever see me.’
Cosby has not responded on Tarshis’ specific allegations, but his lawyer wrote Sunday that Cosby would not “dignify” similar accusations by commenting on them.
Correction, Nov. 17, 2014: This post’s headline originally stated that Tarshis alleges she was raped in 1969. She has said only that she met Cosby in 1969 and was allegedly assaulted on later occasions.
