It was one month ago today that Hannibal Buress went off during a standup set about Bill Cosby and his troubling history of sexual assault. Buress’ comments touched off a month-long media firestorm that has seen 10 women come out and publicly accuse Cosby of assaulting them, and it seems likely that several more victims will come forward as well.
While Cosby himself has refused to comment on the situation, his lawyers have been hard at work for the better part of a decade doing damage control and trying to ease the furor. Cosby has seen his public reputation tarnished, as Netflix has pulled his standup special, NBC canceled his pilot, and TV Land even yanked old episodes of The Cosby Show from the airwaves.
Here’s a rundown of the accusers, and their allegations of what happened between Cosby and them:
- Andrea Constand sues Cosby for drugging and assaulting her in his Philadelphia-area home in 2004. She has 13 witnesses ready to testify against Cosby, whom she alleges has been assaulting women for years. The case was settled out of court in 2006.
- Tamara Green tells the Today Show that Cosby drugged and assaulted her on multiple occasions during the 1970s.
- Barbara Bowman gives an interview to the Daily Mail and writes an op-ed in the Washington Post in which she describes a series of encounters where Cosby allegedly drugged and raped her in 1987.
- Joan Tarshis says Cosby put something in her drink and forced her to perform oral sex on him sometime in the fall of 1969. He allegedly then flew her to a standup performance, and drugged and raped her following the show.
- Janice Dickinson appears on Entertainment Tonight and says Cosby drugged and raped her at Lake Tahoe in 1982 after she had just gotten out of rehab. Cosby’s lawyer categorically denied Dickinson’s claims, saying “Janice [Dickinson's] story accusing Bill Cosby of rape is a complete lie. There is documentary proof that Janice Dickinson is fabricating and lying about Bill Cosby.”
- Carla Ferrigno, the wife of Incredible Hulk star Lou Ferrigno, says that Cosby approached and forcibly kissed her at a party in 1967.
- Therese Serignese met Cosby in the Las Vegas Hilton hotel gift shop in 1976, when she was 19. He invited her up to his room, and when everybody had left she says Cosby drugged and raped her. She intermittently maintains contact with Cosby for several years after (including another sexual encounter in 1985), and receives money from him when she is hurt in a car accident in 1996.
- Angela Leslie says that Cosby flew her out to Las Vegas, tried to drug her, and forced her to fondle him in his hotel room in 1992.
- Kristina Ruehli says she arrived to Cosby’s house for a party in 1965 to find that Cosby was the only one home. She allegedly accepted a drink from him and was knocked completely out, and when she came to she found Cosby attempting to force her to perform oral sex on him. She pushed him away, left, and never saw him again.
- Renita Chaney Hill was on Cosby’s show Picture Page in the early 1980s, and on numerous occasions would accept invitations to his hotel room, have a drink, then pass out without remembering anything. While she does not know if she was raped, Ruehli tells CBS Pittsburgh that “One time, I remember just before I passed out, I remember him kissing and touching me and I remember the taste of his cigar on his breath, and I didn't like it.”
- Joyce Emmons ran several comedy clubs in the 1970s and 1980s. She tells TMZ that she often hung out with Cosby when he performed in Las Vegas. While she never really saw Cosby himself drink or do drugs, he had a drawer full of Quaaludes that people would often party with. After complaining of a headache, Cosby gave Emmons a white pill that he said would help. She woke up nude in Cosby's hotel suite the next morning, in bed with one of his friends that she had turned down the night before. When she confronted Cosby, he laughed and told her it was "just a Quaalude."
- Sarita Butterfield, a former Playboy bunny told the Daily News that Bill Cosby cornered her in 1974 when she was a guest in his Massachussets home on Christmas Eve while Cosby's wife and kids were home. She said Cosby aggressively pinned her in a corner of the guest house and attempted to kiss and grope her breasts, but did not rape her.
