Bill Cosby faces sex abuse accusations from 3 more women
Three more women came forward Wednesday with accusations of being sexually abused by Bill Cosby — including an actress who worked on “The Cosby Show” and another who appeared in a Charles Bronson action movie.
The actresses — Eden Tirl and Linda Ridgeway — were joined by a former New York flight attendant named Colleen Hughes.
Ridgeway, best known for her turn in the 1972 Bronson movie “The Mechanic,” said she was attacked by Cosby a year earlier when she went to talk to him about her career.
“His attack was fast with surgical precision and surprise on his side,” she said. “I couldn't breathe. I was in shock.”
Cosby, she said, forced her to perform oral sex and afterward she felt like “a small animal that had been hit by a car.”
Ridgeway said she considered going over to tell her ex-husband Fred Apollo, the legendary talent agent at the William Morris Agency who helped turn Cosby into a star. But she didn’t want to embarrass him.
“In closing, an actress is like a tennis player,” she said. “Her integrity and confidence are everything. For me, Bill Cosby was a career killer.”
Hughes, who worked for American Airlines, said she met Cosby on a flight to Los Angeles and that he invited her to lunch in Beverly Hills.
“When we arrived at the hotel, Bill walked me to my room and said that he would watch TV while I got ready,” she said.
When she came out, Hughes said she found Cosby drinking champagne out of one of her Gucci shoes.
“I said, ‘Ewww, don't do that, that's gross, I just walked 3,000 miles in those shoes’,” she said. “He raised the shoe toward me offering the drink in my shoe to me and said, ‘A princess should always drink champagne out of a glass slipper.’”
Hughes said she passed on the shoe but accepted a glass of bubbly from Cosby and the next thing she remembered was waking up several hours later and finding semen on her back.
“Bill obviously did not use a condom and there was no lunch and he was nowhere to be seen,” she said. “I was confused and ashamed and never told anyone about what happened to me.”
But she did see Cosby again on another flight.
“It was obvious to me that he did not remember me and used the same line about how I was a ‘fine Irish lass,’” she said. “I told him, ‘You already had me once and I don't want to ever be drugged by you again.’"
Hughes said Cosby blanched and asked her if she told anybody. She said no.
“You are Bill Cosby, who would believe me?” she recalled telling him.
Ridgeway, Hughes and Tirl laid out their accusations at the offices of lawyer Gloria Allred, who is representing several other Cosby accusers.
They join the more than three dozen women who have already made reputation-ruining accusations against Cosby, 78, who continues to deny any wrongdoing.
Once a beloved cultural icon best-known for playing doting dad and husband Cliff Huxtable on "The Cosby Show," Cosby has admitted under oath that he obtained Quaaludes in the 1970s to dope the women he wanted to grope.
That admission was from a 2005 deposition, which was taken after a former Temple University worker alleged in a lawsuit that Cosby doped and groped her.
Cosby's lawyers, however, insist the comedian never admitted using Quaaludes to drug and rape women.
Allred also represents Judith Huth, who claims in a civil lawsuit that Cosby molested her when she was 15 at the Playboy Mansion in 1974.
Cosby has been ordered to appear at an Oct. 9 deposition.
Previously, Cosby tried to get the case dismissed and then asked that Huth's deposition be taken first.
The California Supreme Court rejected his appeal and said the lawsuit could proceed.
ndillon@nydailynews.com
Three more women came forward Wednesday with accusations of being sexually abused by Bill Cosby — including an actress who worked on “The Cosby Show” and another who appeared in a Charles Bronson action movie.
The actresses — Eden Tirl and Linda Ridgeway — were joined by a former New York flight attendant named Colleen Hughes.
Ridgeway, best known for her turn in the 1972 Bronson movie “The Mechanic,” said she was attacked by Cosby a year earlier when she went to talk to him about her career.
“His attack was fast with surgical precision and surprise on his side,” she said. “I couldn't breathe. I was in shock.”
Cosby, she said, forced her to perform oral sex and afterward she felt like “a small animal that had been hit by a car.”
Ridgeway said she considered going over to tell her ex-husband Fred Apollo, the legendary talent agent at the William Morris Agency who helped turn Cosby into a star. But she didn’t want to embarrass him.
“In closing, an actress is like a tennis player,” she said. “Her integrity and confidence are everything. For me, Bill Cosby was a career killer.”
Hughes, who worked for American Airlines, said she met Cosby on a flight to Los Angeles and that he invited her to lunch in Beverly Hills.
“When we arrived at the hotel, Bill walked me to my room and said that he would watch TV while I got ready,” she said.
When she came out, Hughes said she found Cosby drinking champagne out of one of her Gucci shoes.
“I said, ‘Ewww, don't do that, that's gross, I just walked 3,000 miles in those shoes’,” she said. “He raised the shoe toward me offering the drink in my shoe to me and said, ‘A princess should always drink champagne out of a glass slipper.’”
Hughes said she passed on the shoe but accepted a glass of bubbly from Cosby and the next thing she remembered was waking up several hours later and finding semen on her back.
“Bill obviously did not use a condom and there was no lunch and he was nowhere to be seen,” she said. “I was confused and ashamed and never told anyone about what happened to me.”
But she did see Cosby again on another flight.
“It was obvious to me that he did not remember me and used the same line about how I was a ‘fine Irish lass,’” she said. “I told him, ‘You already had me once and I don't want to ever be drugged by you again.’"
Hughes said Cosby blanched and asked her if she told anybody. She said no.
“You are Bill Cosby, who would believe me?” she recalled telling him.
Ridgeway, Hughes and Tirl laid out their accusations at the offices of lawyer Gloria Allred, who is representing several other Cosby accusers.
They join the more than three dozen women who have already made reputation-ruining accusations against Cosby, 78, who continues to deny any wrongdoing.
Once a beloved cultural icon best-known for playing doting dad and husband Cliff Huxtable on "The Cosby Show," Cosby has admitted under oath that he obtained Quaaludes in the 1970s to dope the women he wanted to grope.
That admission was from a 2005 deposition, which was taken after a former Temple University worker alleged in a lawsuit that Cosby doped and groped her.
Cosby's lawyers, however, insist the comedian never admitted using Quaaludes to drug and rape women.
Allred also represents Judith Huth, who claims in a civil lawsuit that Cosby molested her when she was 15 at the Playboy Mansion in 1974.
Cosby has been ordered to appear at an Oct. 9 deposition.
Previously, Cosby tried to get the case dismissed and then asked that Huth's deposition be taken first.
The California Supreme Court rejected his appeal and said the lawsuit could proceed.
ndillon@nydailynews.com
