Amy Graves/WireImage, Getty ImagesJanice Dickinson is the latest woman to publicly accuse Bill Cosby of sexual assault, claiming that back in 1982, she was raped by the comedian. Cosby's attorney Marty Singer issued a statement calling the former model's allegation "a complete lie."
Dickinson, now 59, told Entertainment Tonight Tuesday she wrote about the alleged incident in her 2002 autobiography, No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World's First Supermodel, but claimed she was pressured by Cosby's lawyers to remove the details.
Singer denied this, saying, "You can confirm with HarperCollins that she never claimed that Mr Cosby raped her, that no attorney representing Bill Cosby tried to kill the story (since there was no such story) and no one tried to prevent anything she wanted to say about Bill Cosby in her book."
HarperCollins Vice President of Corporate Communications Erin Crum told E! News, "We have no comment."
Singer also referenced a September 2002 interview with the New York Observer which he claims features Dickinson "completely contradicting her story." Singer stated that in this interview, Dickinson "claimed that because she didn't want to sleep with him (Cosby), he blew her off." Singer noted that Dickinson told the same story of events in her autobiography, noting, "There is documentary proof that Janice Dickinson is fabricating and lying about Bill Cosby."
When Entertainment Tonight asked Dickinson why she didn't immediately report the alleged incident to the police, she responded, "I was embarrassed and ashamed."
Now? "I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do, and it happened to me, and this is the true story," she said. "I believe all the other women."
Cosby, now 77, has consistently denied allegations of sexual abuse against him in the past, and he has never been criminally charged in any case. But as troubling allegations have resurfaced and new claims about Cosby have emerged, his professional future has come into question.
Netflix said late Tuesday it was "postponing the launch of the new stand-up comedy special Bill Cosby 77. NBC said Monday that plans for a Cosby-helmed family comedy were "still in development." NBC Entertainment declined any further comment Tuesday.
(E! and NBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)
—Additional reporting by Claudia Rosenbaum