Back when Janice Dickinson, the polarizing plasticized 70’s-80’s supermodel and America’s Next Top Model judge, wrote her autobiography No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World’s First Supermodel in 2002, she allegedly included a story about being raped by Bill Cosby. In a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, Dickinson both restates the Cosby rape allegation, but also claims that the legendary comedian and his legal team pressured her publisher HarperCollins to remove the story from the book’s first draft. Instead, a less detailed story, stopping short of rape accusations but still creepy, was included. (Read that version here on Vice)

Here’s what Janice Dickinson is now telling ET about her encounter in Lake Tahoe in 1982, when she accepted an invitation from Cosby to meet up to discuss a possible acting job…she claims that after dinner, she accepted a glass of red wine, and a pill to help her with cramps. And then…

“The next morning I woke up, and I wasn’t wearing my pajamas, and I remember before I passed out that I had been sexually assaulted by this man,” she tells ET. “… Before I woke up in the morning, 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. The next morning I remember waking up with my pajamas off and there was se–n in between my legs.“

This accusation comes on the heels of other similar claims, one from former publicist Joan Tarshis, and another, made by a woman named Barbara Bowen via op-ed piece in the Washington Post. And there have been other similar claims going all the way back to 2006, when Cosby settled out-of-court with a woman named Andrea Constand. Constand had accused Cosby of drugging and raping her and lined up 13 other women with similar accusations for testimony.

It seems that a repeating theme in all of these women’s stories is the use of drugs, roofie-style, being used to knock them unconscious or unable to fight back.

Along with the discussion about the allegations themselves, there has also been debate about how Bill Cosby, a pop culture father-figure to generations of Cosby Show fans (myself included), has never been grilled about these rumors during his many high profile interviews (by Oprah Winfrey, etc) over the years. But Cosby was asked some tough questions during a recent interview with NPR, and he refused to address them, only shaking his head no. Bill Cosby has never been convicted of any sex crimes, and Cosby’s reps have vehemently denied any guilt, releasing this statement in response to the NPR interview:

Over the last several weeks, decade-old, discredited allegations against Mr. Cosby have resurfaced. The fact they are being repeated does not make them true. Mr. Cosby does not intend to dignify these allegations with any comment. He would like to thank all his fans for the outpouring of support and assure them that, at age 77, he is doing his best work. There will be no further statement from Mr. Cosby or any of his representatives.

Background Reading:
NPR: “In NPR Interview, Bill Cosby Declines To Discuss Assault Allegations”
NPR: “Bill Cosby’s Silence On Rape Allegations Makes Huge Media Noise”
Vulture: “One Very Important Thing Is Missing From the New Cosby Biography: A Timeline of the Abuse Charges”
Vulture: “Hannibal Buress Called Bill Cosby a Rapist”
Washington Post: “Bill Cosby raped me. Why did it take 30 years for people to believe my story?”
Entertainment Tonight: “Janice Dickinson Details Bill Cosby Sexual Assault Accusations: He Raped Me”
Columbia Journalism Review: “Why won’t journalists ask Bill Cosby the tough questions?”

sigh.