Two women have accused Sex and the City star Chris Noth of sexual assault in separate incidents that occurred over a decade apart, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The two women, identified as Zoe, 40, and Lily, 31 (both pseudonyms), do not know each other and shared their stories with THR separately. Both were compelled to speak out due to the media coverage surrounding the new SATC sequel series, And Just Like That (Noth reprises his role as Mr. Big in the first episode, but dies at the end).
“[S]eeing that he was reprising his role in Sex and the City set off something in me,” said Zoe, who works in the entertainment industry and said she feared repercussions if shared her identity. “For so many years, I buried it.”
Noth, in a statement shared with Rolling Stone, denied the allegations: “The accusations against me made by individuals I met years, even decades, ago are categorically false. These stories could’ve been from 30 years ago or 30 days ago — no always means no — that is a line I did not cross. The encounters were consensual. It’s difficult not to question the timing of these stories coming out. I don’t know for certain why they are surfacing now, but I do know this: I did not assault these women.”
Zoe alleged that Noth assaulted and raped her in 2004 when she was 22. She had just moved to Los Angeles and was working at a firm where Noth had business, and she says he would flirt with her at her desk and even got her phone number from the staff directory. Zoe’s now-former boss confirmed that Zoe let her listen to some “kind of flirty” voicemails Noth left her, and while she thought it was somewhat strange, it wasn’t alarming: “This was peak Sex and the City,” the former boss said. “He was like a god to us.”
Zoe said Noth invited her to a pool at a West Hollywood building where he had an apartment (Zoe also happened to have a friend who lived in the same building). In August 2004, Zoe and a different friend, who was visiting from the East Coast, met Noth at the pool and spent the day together. At one point, Noth left to take a call in his apartment, but left a book he was interested in adapting with Zoe and told her to bring it back to his apartment. “He said, ‘I’d love to know what you think,’” Zoe recalled. “I thought, ‘I’m new. He’s asking my opinion — I’ve only been in Hollywood for two months.”
Upon returning the book, Zoe said Noth kissed her as she walked in, and while she timidly returned the kiss, she then told Noth she was going to return to her friend. At that point, Zoe said, Noth pulled her toward him, took her to the bed, pulled down her pants and began to rape her from behind while she faced a mirror.
“It was very painful and I yelled out, ‘Stop!’” Zoe said. “And he didn’t. I said, ‘Can you at least get a condom?’ and he laughed at me.”
When it ended, Zoe said she realized there was blood on her shirt; she left Noth’s apartment and went to the apartment of the friend who also lived in the building. She said she immediately tried to wash the blood out of her shirt and that she wouldn’t tell her friends what had happened. Zoe’s visiting friend remembered her going to the bathroom, avoiding eye contact, and refusing to say what had happened; eventually, the friend convinced her to go to a hospital, where Zoe said she was assaulted. She received stitches, medicine and some crisis counseling; the hospital, Cedars-Sinai, said it doesn’t keep records dating back to 2004.
Zoe said she did speak to two police officers at the hospital but didn’t identify her alleged attacker, fearing no one would believe her and that she could lose her job if she accused Noth publicly. Zoe’s former boss said Zoe called later that day and told her that Noth had attacked her, though Zoe doesn’t remember making the call. Zoe’s former boss said she agreed, at Zoe’s request, not to tell anyone about the alleged attack.
Two years later, Zoe said she sought treatment and counseling at the UCLA Rape Crisis Center because she was having nightmares and flashbacks (the center’s clinical director confirmed she was treated there). “I had buried it as long as I could, and then I really wasn’t doing well and finally went to the treatment the ER had recommended,” Zoe said.
The second alleged incident, involving Lily, took place 11 years later in 2015. Lily, then 25, met Noth while working as a server in the VIP section of a now-closed NYC nightclub, No.8. She said Noth, who was 60 at the time and married with a child, got her number and asked her out. Lily agreed — despite some protestations from a concerned friend — and met Noth at a restaurant. By the time she arrived, however, the kitchen was closed, so they drank wine at the bar and talked. While Lily acknowledged she drank a lot that night, she said she was not close to blacking out.
Lily said Noth invited her back to his Greenwich Village apartment to try some of his whiskey collection. She said, at the apartment, Noth tried to make out with her and she “cautiously entertained it.” She continued: “He kept trying and trying and trying, and I should have said no more firmly and left. And then the next thing I knew, he pulled down his pants and he was standing in front of me.”
Lily said Noth forced her to perform oral sex on him, and when she brought up his wife and children, she says Noth replied that marriage was a “sham” and that, “Monogamy is not real.” Soon after, Lily said, “He was having sex with me from the back in a chair. We were in front of a mirror. I was kind of crying as it happened.”
Lily said she felt “awful” afterwards and “totally violated.” Lily’s concerned friend, Alex, remembers Lily calling her from an Uber, though Lily doesn’t remember making the call. Alex said Lily told her that Noth had “pretty forcibly” had sex with her and that Lily sounded “pretty hysterical”; while Alex suggested she call the police, Lily said no.
The next day, Alex said she listened to a voicemail Noth had left on Lily’s phone: “It was, ‘Hey, hope you didn’t take anything wrong last night. We had fun. Just want to make sure you didn’t take it the wrong way.’” Lily said she remembered the voicemail somewhat differently, “He left a voicemail saying, ‘I had a nice time and would really appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk to your girlfriends. If we could keep this between you and me, that would be great.’”
Lily also shared a handful of texts between her and Noth from March and April 2015. After Noth asked if she had enjoyed their night together, Lily replied, “Hmm…I certainly enjoyed your company. Great conversation. Not to go into specifics over text message, but I did feel slightly used… Perhaps this is better as a phone conversation but I can’t talk at the moment.” Noth tried to get Lily to go out with him again, but she put him off and never saw him again.
While Noth’s role in And Just Like That was limited to the first episode, he’s had an outsized presence in discussions about the show due to the fate suffered by Mr. Big — dying of a heart attack after a ride on his Peloton bike. In the wake of the premiere, Peloton (which reportedly wasn’t aware of how its product would be used in the show) and Ryan Reynolds’ marketing firm, Maximum Effort, quickly created a viral ad spoofing the plot point. Following the allegations against Noth, however, the spot was removed.
From Rolling Stone US
