It seems as if every day brings another allegation that further dismantles Bill Cosby’s image as the jovial, pudding-loving patriarch whose family-friendly brand of comedy tickled successive generations.
Though the star has vehemently denied most of the accusations that he drugged and sexually assaulted young women seeking career guidance, the stories are taking their toll on his reputation and bankroll.
The stories of Cosby’s purported misdeeds have been around for about a decade, but they recently got new life when a comedian took aim at him and a social media stunt inviting fans to meme the comic went awry.
Cosby, 77, has never faced a judge or jury, let alone been convicted, over the allegations. But it’s clear many people have already tried him in their minds.
When an NPR reporter gave him a chance to deny the allegations, Cosby provided an awkward moment of radio silence, refusing to answer the question. Given the same chance by The Associated Press, he offered no comment. When the interview concluded, he told a reporter that asking him about the allegations was a mark of low integrity and said he’d be appreciative if that portion of the interview was “scuttled.”
Last month, Cosby told Florida Today he won’t respond to “innuendos,” referring to the women’s accusations.
“I know people are tired of me not saying anything, but a guy doesn’t have to answer to innuendos. People should fact-check. People shouldn’t have to go through that and shouldn’t answer to innuendos,” Cosby told the newspaper in a backstage interview before his sellout performance at the King Center for the Performing Arts in Melbourne, Florida.
At least 20 women have spoken out to various media outlets, accusing Cosby of sexual misconduct.
Here are 17 who have spoken with CNN, spoken on camera about their allegations or been the subject of responses from Cosby’s attorneys:
Judy Huth
Judy Huth has filled a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming sexual battery and infliction of emotional distress during an incident at the Playboy Mansion, according to the documents posted by Radar Online.
The alleged sexual assault took place in 1974 when Huth was 15 years old.
According to court documents, Huth and a 16-year-old friend meet Cosby when he was filming a movie at Lacy Park in Los Angeles.
After talking with the girls, the suit alleges, Cosby invited them to come to his tennis club the following Saturday “where he served them alcoholic beverages and played games of billiards.”
They then went to the Playboy Mansion where, the lawsuit says, Cosby asked Huth to sit on a bed beside him, after she came out of a bathroom.
“He then proceeded to sexually molest her by attempting to put his hand down her pants, and then taking her hand in his hand and performing a sex act on himself without her consent.”
The suit goes on to call Cosby’s alleged actions “malicious, oppressive and fraudulent in nature.”
“This traumatic incident, at such a tender age, has caused psychological damage and mental anguish for (Huth) that has caused her significant problems throughout her life since the incident.”
The case describes the damages “substantial and continuing.”
Huth is asking for damages and legal fees.
CNN reached out to Cosby’s lawyer Martin D. Singer, but was not immediately able to get a response.
His camp has repeatedly and vigorously denied previous allegations.
Victoria Valentino
Playboy bunny Victoria Valentino says her friend Francesca Emerson first introduced her to Cosby hoping to help her get work on his show “I Spy” in the late ’60s.
Valentino says after an interview in his trailer, Cosby invited her and a different friend to dinner.
They drank red wine at dinner, where she says Cosby offered her pills to “cheer up.”
She remembers feeling “stoned,” slurring her words.
She went with him to a place where he had memorabilia, she said. She described it as a space in an apartment building that was like an office, with two love seats and no working phone. It was a “ballers pad,” she said.
At some point during the evening, she says, she was feeling “totally out of it” when she saw Cosby attempting to advance on her passed-out friend. She says she began reaching out to Cosby to pull him off her friend when Cosby pushed her down, first pushing himself near her mouth, before turning her around and raping her.
On why she never spoke out then about the incident, Valentino told CNN, “As a playmate I thought, who would believe me?”
“I couldn’t bring myself to jump into the fire.”
Emerson told CNN that Valentino told her about the alleged incident with Cosby shortly after it happened.
She said Valentino at the time was in a position to be taken advantage of because she was vulnerable and had just lost her son. Valentino told CNN that at the time she was deeply grieving the loss of her 7-year-old son, who had drowned in a pool at her music manager’s house.
Emerson, now 73, said Cosby was never inappropriate with her; in fact, he once gave her $1,000 after she told him she was signing up for food stamps.
Valentino says her daughters knew about this incident. She wrote a story about it and thought about publishing it, but then held back.
“I can’t hear his name … something inside me shrinks and sinks when I think of him,” she said.
CNN repeatedly reached out to Cosby’s attorney over the weekend for comment regarding Valentino’s allegations but did not hear back.
Linda Joy Traitz
Linda Joy Traitz has a criminal record in Florida and spent time in prison on a conviction for drug trafficking, according to state records.
Cosby’s lawyer, Martin D. Singer, passed on her lengthy rap sheet as an indication of her character.
But Traitz spoke openly about her record to CNN, including her last arrest in 2008, which led to more than three years in prison for drug trafficking and possession.
“When I got sent to prison … it saved my life,” she said. “It was a great experience for me.” It ended her addiction to pain pills, and she’s been clean ever since, she said.
Numerous arrests speckle Traitz’s rap sheet, including on suspicion of theft, battery and types of deception — fraud and impersonation — often in connection with drug possession.
She said Cosby pushed himself on her when she worked as a waitress at a restaurant in Los Angeles that Cosby co-owned when she met him in 1969.
Billboard Magazine mentioned Cosby co-owned a restaurant in a 1970 article.
Traitz was either 18 or 19 at the time, she said; she did not recall exactly. But she was fresh out of high school and new to the city, she said.
Cosby offered her a ride home but on the way, told her he’d like to swing by the beach with her in his Rolls Royce, she said. They parked, and he offered her drugs, an array of brightly colored pills, “to relax,” she alleged.
She said no, a few times. “He kept offering me the pills,” she alleged, and it made her feel uncomfortable. She claimed that he then groped her chest, pushing her down in the seat and toward the door, and tried to lie on top of her.
She got out of the car and ran, she said. She added that she was “absolutely not” raped. He tried to calm her, she said, then drove her home in silence.
Cosby’s attorney said her account was not true.
“Ms. Traitz is the latest example of people coming out of the woodwork with fabricated or unsubstantiated stories about my client,” Singer said in a statement.
Louisa Moritz
“We’ve reached a point of absurdity.”
That was the reaction of Cosby’s attorney when former actress Louisa Moritz told her story to entertainment website TMZ.
“The stories are getting more ridiculous. Now this woman is claiming that something occurred more than 40 years ago and that while she was waiting in the dressing room to appear on the Tonight Show, my client forced his penis into her mouth,” the statement read.
That is what TMZ reported that Moritz alleged.
She was in the green room at NBC in New York when Cosby paid her a visit, she alleges. He offered to turn her into a “major star through his direction,” she told TMZ.
Then he forced himself on her, she alleged.
Moritz was known for her roles mostly as a blond bombshell, according to her IMDb profile. She is probably best known for her role as a prostitute in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
In real life, she was anything but mindless, IMDb wrote. She was a licensed lawyer in California and made the dean’s list in law school.
Singer also called her credibility into question over disciplinary action the state bar took against her over a legal fee.
She received as a disciplinary measure a “public reproval” in 2013 after taking a legal fee for work that was not performed. She refunded the fee after the client complained to the bar, according to documents.
In September, Moritz, who is 68, did not respond to a notice of disciplinary charges and as a result, a court recommended her disbarment.
CNN made multiple calls to numbers listed for Moritz, and has not been able to reach her.
Andrea Constand
In January 2004, Constand, then a 31-year-old staffer for the women’s basketball team at Temple University — Cosby’s alma mater — was at the comedian’s Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, home when Cosby provided her medication that made her dizzy, she alleged the following year.
She later woke up to find her bra undone and her clothes in disarray, she further alleged to police in her home province of Ontario, Canada, in January 2005.
Though Cosby’s attorney initially called Constand’s claim “utterly preposterous” and no charges were filed, Cosby settled a civil suit with Constand that alleged 13 Jane Does had similar stories of sexual abuse.
When Cosby attorney John Schmitt sent out a blanket denial of several allegations that have cropped up recently, he later amended his denial to say he wasn’t referring to Constand, who resolved her differences “to the mutual satisfaction of Mr. Cosby and Ms. Constand years ago.”
Donna Motsinger
One of the Jane Does who was part of the civil suit with Constand was Donna Motsinger. Speaking publicly now, Motsinger, 73, said she worked at a restaurant in Sausalito, California, that was popular with celebrities in the early 1970s. She met Cosby there, and said he asked her to his show. She accepted.
“I was so young, so innocent, I was so impressed that somebody so famous wanted to go out with me. My goodness, I was over the moon,” Motsinger told CNN.
She said they stopped for gas and had an alcoholic beverage. By the time they got to the theater, she felt sick and asked for an aspirin. Motsinger said Cosby gave her what she thought was an aspirin.
“The next thing I remember from that minute on, after that there was some conversation and laughing and stuff, but then the next thing I remember and I don’t know the time between the aspirin and this time but the next thing I remember I had become conscious in the limousine, he’s next to me, he’s got his hands on me and I look up I see the lights of the city. I could see it clear as a bell in my mind right now, the lights of the city coming back and it was all blurry, kind of the lights, and I passed out again,” she said.
Motsinger continued: “The next thing I knew I woke up the next morning in my own bed, in my own house with all my clothes off except for my underwear and I didn’t tell a soul.”
Therese Serignese
Florida nurse Therese Serignese, 57, told ABC’s 20/20 that she was a 19-year-old model visiting Las Vegas when Cosby handed her pills in a private dressing room following a performance.
“Take these,” Cosby told her, according to Serignese.
After consuming the pills, she remembered “feeling drugged, and I was kind of leaning forward, and he was behind me having sex with me. And I — I remember it because it was not good.”
Serignese never made public accusations in the immediate aftermath. She explained her decision in an article she wrote in Friday’s New York Daily News.
“Cosby was everywhere. Everyone thought he was a great family man. I knew he wasn’t. I just couldn’t prove it with anything but my word. There was no video camera or DNA evidence. No one else had accused him publicly yet,” Serignese wrote.
She added: “He didn’t drink or take the pills. They could test him, and he’d be clean.”
Serignese says she was going to testify to support Constand in her civil lawsuit against Cosby.
“When the first victim came forward in 2005, I was angry that he called her a liar. I wanted to back her up. But even then I worried about the repercussions. I had younger children then,” Serignese wrote.
“Ten years ago, the climate still wasn’t right. We would have all been humiliated. Now, I could see it was time, and I would be safer. I wouldn’t be alone. It took me 38 years to feel safe,” she said.
Serignese told “20/20” that she called Cosby and saw him again after the initial encounter. When asked whether she had sex with him again, she said, “I probably did.”
When asked whether that sex was consensual, Serignese said: “Oh, that’s an interesting way to phrase it, isn’t that? I would say I never was an active participant in any sexual intercourse with him.
“I never gave the impression that I wanted sex with him whatsoever. I would say, from my perspective, that I was used,” she said.
In a general response to the accusations, Cosby’s attorney Singer called the increasing number of claims of sexual assault against the legendary comedian “ridiculous” and said the media should stop airing “unsubstantiated, fantastical stories.”
Singer said in a written statement sent to CNN that it defies common sense that “so many people would have said nothing, done nothing, and made no reports to law enforcement or asserted civil claims if they thought they had been assaulted over a span of so many years.”
Joan Tarshis
Tarshis was a 19-year-old actress in 1969 when, she says, she met Cosby in Los Angeles. The two became friendly. One night after taping his sitcom, he invited her back to his bungalow and fixed her a “redeye” (a Bloody Mary topped with beer), she alleged this month.
“The next thing I remember was coming to on his couch while being undressed,” she told Hollywood Elsewhere. “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.”
It was the first of two similar incidents, said Tarshis, who is now a journalist and publicist.
Carla Ferrigno
The now-wife of “The Incredible Hulk” star Lou Ferrigno told CNN that Cosby forcibly kissed her at his home in 1967.
Carla Ferrigno said she told her husband, whom she married in 1980, about the incident about five years ago and he advised her to stay silent.
“I am going public (now) because I am just one more person who puts the nail in his coffin,” she said.
A Cosby lawyer called the media coverage of the allegation “utter nonsense.”
“This continuing pattern of attacks on Mr. Cosby has entered the realm of the ridiculous, with a purported ‘forceful kiss’ at a party in 1967, nearly 50 years ago, being treated as a current ‘news story’ and grossly mischaracterized as a ‘sexual assault,'” attorney Singer said in a statement.
Carla Ferrigno was an 18-year-old Playboy bunny when she went with a male friend to Cosby’s house. The comedian and his wife went to a movie with Ferrigno and her date, then returned to Cosby’s home in Beverly Hills.
She told CNN that Cosby’s wife disappeared while the other three played pool.
After her date left the room, Cosby grabbed her, pulled her to him and kissed her, she said.
“It was so unexpected and so rough. He kissed me right in the mouth.”
Tamara Green
In 1970, attorney Green was an aspiring model in her early 20s. At a working lunch with Cosby and others, she was suffering from the flu and Cosby “went into some sort of office area at the back of the restaurant and he produced two capsules in his hand,” she told Matt Lauer of the “Today” show. She said they made her feel “great” at first, but then left her “almost literally face down on the table of this restaurant.”
Cosby took her to her apartment and started “groping me and kissing me and touching me and handling me and you know, taking off my clothes,” Green said. After telling Cosby “that if he didn’t kill me and he tried to rape me, it was going to go very badly,” he left two $100 bills on her coffee table and left, she said in her 2005 allegation.
A lawyer for Cosby told the show, “Miss Green’s allegations are absolutely false. Mr. Cosby does not know the name Tamara Green or (maiden name) Tamara Lucier, and the incident she describes did not happen.”
Janice Dickinson
Cosby was a familiar face in 1982, not only for his comedy, but also for his Jell-O and Coca-Cola commercials. Dickinson was a supermodel in her late 20s.
Dickinson alleged that she and Cosby had dinner in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and he gave her a glass of red wine and a pill she believed was for menstrual cramps.
“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,” she told “Entertainment Tonight.”
Cosby’s attorney, Singer, said in a statement that Dickinson’s allegation was a “fabricated lie” that contradicted what she wrote in her autobiography and what she said during a 2002 New York Observer interview.
Beth Ferrier
Ferrier told media outlets in 2005 that she met Cosby in Denver in the mid-’80s. He mentored her for a time, but one night, she said, he gave her a drugged cappuccino.
“I woke up in my car in the parking lot with my clothes all a mess,” she said. “I wondered, I still wonder, ‘What did he do with me? Why was my bra unhooked?'”
The two later conducted an “on-and-off consensual affair” that lasted several years, she alleged to People magazine.
“He kept luring me in,” Ferrier told the magazine. “I felt like I couldn’t say no.”
At the time, Cosby’s publicist told People that he had no comment.
Barbara Bowman
In 1985, when Cosby was starring in his eponymous No. 1 TV show as a doting, wisecracking dad and doctor, Bowman, a 17-year-old model and actress, met Cosby in Denver. She came forward with her allegations in 2006 and recently wrote a column in The Washington Post questioning why no one listened to her the first time.
According to Bowman’s account, Cosby visited her numerous times, giving her acting lessons and “flying me around to major cities to events,” she told Newsweek. After she turned 18, Cosby “assaulted (me) a number of times.” In an incident in New York, Bowman “had one glass of wine and then I blacked out. I woke up throwing up in the toilet. … I was wearing a white T-shirt that wasn’t mine, and he was in a white robe.”
In an incident in Atlantic City, an angry Cosby “got on top of me and started taking his pants off and I was screaming and crying and begging him to leave me alone and I fought so hard and I was screaming so loud that he got mad and threw me aside and got away from me, and that was it.”
The Cosby camp replied, “Over the last several weeks, decade-old, discredited allegations against Mr. Cosby have resurfaced. The fact that they are being repeated does not make them true. Mr. Cosby does not intend to dignify these allegations with any comment.”
Kristina Ruehli
One of the latest women to accuse Cosby, Ruehli alleges the comedian gave her cocktails, which she believes contained drugs, during a 1965 visit to his home.
At the time, Ruehli was a secretary for a talent agency that had Cosby as a client. She said she was invited to the home to celebrate a taping of “Hollywood Palace.” Ruehli says she and an unnamed actress were the only attendees at the party.
She says she went unconscious after consuming drinks, and later woke up to find Cosby attempting to force her mouth onto his pubic area. She said she pulled away to vomit and drove herself home. It was the last time she would see Cosby, she told CNN.
Jewel Allison
Allison was a model and aspiring actress in her late 20s when she first met Cosby in the late 1980s. She says he offered to help her out, inviting her to his home.
When she arrived, no one else there besides Cosby, Allison says. At one point, after taking a few sips of wine, she began to feel “out of it.”
“I realized that something sexual was going on, but I was unable to stop it,” Allison tells CNN.
Allison, an African-American like Cosby, said she went home crying, feeling she’d been drugged and sexually assaulted by “the one person that meant so much” to her community.
Cosby’s lawyers did not respond to repeated requests by CNN for comment on Allison’s allegation.
Helen Hayes
In a statement released through lawyer Gloria Allred’s office, Hayes alleged that Cosby followed her and two friends “around all day” at a summer 1973 celebrity tennis tournament in Pebble Beach, California, hosted by actor Clint Eastwood.
Hayes claimed that she and her friends tried to avoid Cosby, but he caught up with them in a restaurant, “approached me from behind and reached over my shoulder and grabbed my right breast.”
“I was stunned and angry, because he had no right to do that and I did not know why he would behave that way,” Hayes said. “His behavior was like that of a predator.”
Chelan
Identifying herself only by a first name during a news conference with Allred, Chelan said that she was a 17-year-old aspiring model who worked at the Las Vegas Hilton when her father’s wife wrote and sent pictures of her to Cosby.
Cosby called Chelan at home, arranging to meet her at the Nevada hotel “to introduce me to someone from the Ford modeling agency,” she said.
After she got there, the then-high schooler said Cosby gave her “a blue pill, which he said was an antihistamine, with a double shot of Ameretto.”
Chelan claimed that someone did come into the room, “took a couple of pictures and told me to lose 10 pounds. Then they left.”
That left her alone with Cosby, who she said offered her another shot of Ameretto.
She alleged that Cosby lay down next to her on the bed and began touching her sexually and grunting.
“I could not open my eyes,” Chelan said in a statement. “I couldn’t move or say anything. I felt something warm on my legs. Then I blacked out.”
Chelan claimed she awoke 13 to 16 hours later, at which point Cosby gave her $1,500 and invited her to his next show.
“My grandmother really wanted to go,” she said. “I did not, but I went with her and heckled him. As a result, I was fired from my job.”
