Becoming the most high-profile woman to accuse the comedian of wrongdoing, Johnson said he also dragged her down the stairs.
- Dec 12, 2014
AceShowbiz - Five Bill Cosby accusers previously said there would be more women who will come forward. Indeed, actress and iconic African-American former model Beverly Johnson decided to tell her harrowing experience, and consequently became the most high-profile woman to accuse the comedian to date.
Johnson wrote a personal essay which was published by Vanity Fair on Thursday, December 11. Under the title "Bill Cosby Drugged Me. This is My Story", she said she auditioned for a small role in "The Cosby Show" in 1980s. She was then invited to Cosby's home in NYC to rehearse for a scene and handed a cup of coffee which she believed was infused with drugs.
"I told him I didn't drink coffee that late in the afternoon because it made getting to sleep at night more difficult. He wouldn't let it go," Johnson wrote. "He insisted that his espresso machine was the best model on the market and promised I'd never tasted a cappuccino quite like this one." However, Johnson did not say there was a sexual assault taking place.
"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 recalled. "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."
She remembered Cosby got pissed when she came to her senses. "I recall his seething anger at my tirade and then him grabbing me by my left arm hard and yanking all 110 pounds of me down a bunch of stairs as my high heels clicked and clacked on every step," she alleged. "I feared my neck was going to break with the force he was using to pull me down those stairs." He then sent her home in a taxi.
Johnson decided to confront him the next day but his wife Camille picked up the phone and said to call another time. Johnson never did. "For a long time I thought it was something that only happened to me, and that I was somehow responsible. So I kept my secret to myself, believing this truth needed to remain in the darkness," Johnson said.
And she only came out with the accusations now after inspired by Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black youths killed by white men. "I reached the conclusion that the current attack on African-American men has absolutely nothing to do at all with Bill Cosby," wrote Johnson. "He brought this on himself when he decided he had the right to have his way with who knows how many women over the last four decades."
