Bill Cosby Is Suing Model Beverly Johnson For Defamation
Beverly Johnson was the first African American woman to accuse comedian Bill Cosby of sexual assault. By then, several women came out against Cosby, but her testimony was the most damaging given her status in Hollywood as a model, and the fact that she unintentionally swayed some supporters of Cosby who were allegedly still on his side.
After Johnson spoke out against Cosby, it seemed like it gave a voice to several other women to come forward about their stories of abuse at the hands of Cosby. Now, a year after Beverly Johnson spoke out against Cosby, the troubled comedian is suing Johnson for defamation of character in a new lawsuit. This is significant, given the fact that Bill Cosby has iced out questions about all of the allegations, and has distanced himself from the dozens of women who have accused him of sexual misconduct.
According to E!, who obtained court documents, Cosby’s representative said that Johnson’s claims, “are entirely fabricated and nothing more than an opportunistic attempt to resuscitate her own career and benefit herself financially from the wave of media attention surrounding her false allegations against Crosby.”
Bill Cosby Sues Model Beverly Johnson For Defamation https://t.co/3cVCGGbhb4 pic.twitter.com/TKy4LPcoIh
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) December 21, 2015
It’s said that the model is gaining some income from speaking out against Bill Cosby. Due to this, Cosby is seeking “compensatory and punitive damages” as well as a court order. According to Cosby these are attempts to “assassinate” his reputation and is nothing more than Johnson’s attempt to, “thrust herself back into the spotlight in an attempt to revive her flagging career as a model, actress and public personality.”
As the Inquisitr reported, Beverly Johnson accused Cosby of drugging her in the 80s. Her initial allegations came out in an op-ed for Vanity Fair. Cosby allegedly invited her out and courted her until she was comfortable enough to go to his house to run lines, as the comedian wanted her to audition for a role on The Cosby Show, which aligns with many other stories from Cosby’s alleged victims.
That’s when Johnson said that he drugged her with a cappuccino.
“My head became woozy, my speech became slurred, and the room began to spin nonstop. Cosby motioned for me to come over to him as though we were really about to act out the scene. He put his hands around my waist, and I managed to put my hand on his shoulder in order to steady myself.”
She continued, in great detail.
“As I felt my body go completely limp, my brain switched into automatic-survival mode. That meant making sure Cosby understood that I knew exactly what was happening at that very moment.”
Now Bill Cosby is going after @BeverlyJohnson1, claims supermodel made up rape claims https://t.co/usi6yAErRa pic.twitter.com/f2SAdPxnKP
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) December 21, 2015
The model said it was only when she told him off and called him a “motherf–er” that he put her in a cab and didn’t wait for her to fall asleep. Many of the women accusing Cosby of rape say that the last thing they remember is drinking a beverage offered by Bill Cosby, and then waking up in various states of undress.
Johnson said the reason she stayed silent for so long was because she didn’t want it to affect or hurt her career in any way, given that she was still new to the business. Many women who accuse Bill Cosby of drugging them and/or raping them, were aspiring actresses, and a good number of the women say their experiences happened with Cosby while auditioning privately for The Cosby Show.
Bill Cosby’s wife, Camille Cosby, has stood by him in the midst of the allegations, even after court documents were released from a civil suit from 2005 in which Cosby admitted that he obtained Quaaludes to give to women with the intention of having sex with them. Currently, Cosby’s lawyers are fighting against a subpoena for Camille.
[Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images]
