I’m A Celebrity star Janice Dickinson is one of nine more women to sue Bill Cosby claiming he sexually assaulted her.
The former model, who was runner up in the seventh series of the jungle reality TV show in 2007, alleges the comic actor used his “enormous power, fame and prestige” to victimise her.
A lawsuit filed in federal court in Nevada, US, alleges the women were individually drugged and assaulted between 1979 and 1992 in Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe homes, dressing rooms and hotels.
READ MORE: I’m A Celeb’s Janice Dickinson got close to ‘wild animals’ on show – but feared ‘attack’
The 85-year-old former The Cosby Show star has now been accused of rape, sexual assault and harassment by more than 60 women.
(Image: Getty Images)
He has denied all allegations involving sex crimes.
Cosby was the first celebrity tried and found guilty in the #MeToo era and spent nearly three years at a state prison near Philadelphia before a higher court threw out the conviction and released him in 2021.
Earlier this year a Los Angeles jury awarded $500,000 (£393,000) to a woman who said he sexually abused her at the Playboy Mansion when she was 16 in 1975.
(Image: ITV)
One woman alleges Cosby, claiming to be her acting mentor, lured her from New York to Nevada where he drugged her in a hotel room with what he claimed was non-alcoholic cider before raping her.
The new lawsuit comes just weeks after Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo signed a bill eliminating a two-year deadline for adults to file sexual abuse cases.
Similar suits have followed ‘lookback laws’ in other US states.
One of the alleged victims – actress Lise-Lotte Lublin – had advocated for the change.
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She had previously alleged Cosby gave her spiked drinks and raped her at a Las Vegas hotel in 1989.
“For years I have fought for survivors of sexual assault and today is the first time I will be able to fight for myself,” she said in a statement.
“With the new law change I now have the ability to take my assailant Bill Cosby to court.
“My journey has just begun, but I am grateful for this opportunity to find justice.”
In California a former Playboy model who alleges Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her and another woman at his home in 1969 sued him on June 1 under a new law suspending the statute of limitations on sex abuse claims.
Cosby’s publicist Andrew Wyatt slammed the laws.
(Image: ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
He said: “Judges and lawmakers are consistently allowing these civil suits to flood their dockets knowing that these women are not fighting for victims but for their addiction to massive amounts of media attention and greed.
“From this day forward we will not continue to allow these women to parade various accounts of an alleged allegation against Mr Cosby anymore without vetting them in the court of public opinion and inside of the courtroom.”
Mum-of-two Janice, a former judge on America’s Next Top Model who also starred in Celebrity Big Brother in 2015, appeared as a witness at Cosby’s 2018 criminal trial.
(Image: AFP PHOTO/STAN HONDA/FILESSTAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)
She told of her anger and disgust at being allegedly raped by the star after losing consciousness when he gave her a “small blue pill” he claimed would help with menstrual pains.
Janice – then 27 – told how she “zonked” out and thought: “Here was America’s dad on top of me, a happily married man with five children and I remember how wrong it was, how very, very wrong it was.”
She said she confronted Cosby the next day, telling him: “What happened last night wasn’t cool. Why did you do that?”
Janice said she wanted to “punch him in the face” but got no reaction from the actor.
Her representatives had not responded to a request for comment.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
