Trigger warning: Rape: This story includes graphic descriptions of alleged sexual assaults. The new Sex in the City reboot, And Just Like That is no stranger to controversy between feuding with Kim Cattrell and Peloton disgruntled over killing a character, the actor who plays that character, Chris Noth has now been accused of sexual assault, by two separate women.
Now, Peloton is removing a viral ad starring Chris Noth from its social media accounts after sexual assault allegations against the Sex and the City actor surfaced.
“Every single sexual assault accusation must be taken seriously,” Peloton said in a statement. “We were unaware of these allegations when we featured Chris Noth in our response to HBO’s reboot” of the show. “As we seek to learn more, we have stopped promoting this video and archived related social posts.”
Mr. Big himself has been accused of sexual assault which allegedly occurred long before the #metoo movement burned across the country. The Hollywood Reporter received tips from two separate women who do not know each other, months apart and shared their stories in graphic detail, as well as the support they sought after their traumatic assaults.
The assaults allegedly occurred in 2004 in Los Angeles and another from 2015 in New York and the actor has denied this as “categorically false.”
Zoe’s Allegations
Zoe, now 40, and Lily, now 31, both allege they were sexually assaulted by actor Chris Noth. To protect their privacy, THR is allowing both women to use pseudonyms.
Zoe emailed The Hollywood Reporter in October. She still works in the entertainment industry and is fearful of repercussions if her identity were known. But “seeing that he was reprising his role in Sex and the City set off something in me,” she says. “For so many years, I buried it.” She decided it was time “to try to go public with who he is.”
Zoe alleges that when she was 25 years old Noth raped her in his Los Angeles apartment and she shared details of that assault to the magazine. Zoe says he kissed her as she stepped through the door. She tentatively kissed back but then said, “Thank you, I’m going back to my friend.” The kiss itself didn’t alarm her and she thought a kiss from Mr. Big would be a fun story to tell her friends. But she says he then pulled her toward him, moved her toward the bed, pulled off her shorts and bikini bottom, and began to rape her from behind. She was facing a mirror. “It was very painful and I yelled out, ‘Stop!’” she says. “And he didn’t. I said, ‘Can you at least get a condom?’ and he laughed at me.”
When it was over, she says, “I realized there was blood on my shirt. I got out of there. I went to my friend’s apartment [in the same building].” The friend visiting from college was already there, she says. “I walked right in and went to the bathroom and tried to get the blood out of my shirt. They wanted to know what happened. I said, ‘I just want to go home.’” The visiting friend pursued her, and said, “You’re scaring me.”
That friend was available to corroborate Zoe’s account and told The Hollywood Reporter that Zoe was strikingly different when she returned from Noth’s apartment. “She went right into the powder room. When she came out she was very aloof, kind of cool. She’s a very gregarious, sweet, friendly person. It was a very weird change.” She asked what happened, but Zoe coldly said she wasn’t going to talk about her personal life. “It was not like her,” the friend says. “We left. Riding the elevator was awkward. She wouldn’t talk. She wouldn’t make eye contact. When we got in the car, I started pressing her: ‘You have to tell me what happened. Something’s wrong.’ I don’t remember the words she said, but I said, ‘I’m taking you to the hospital.’”
The two went to Cedars-Sinai, where Zoe told staff she had been assaulted. “I had stitches. Two police officers came. I wouldn’t say who it was,” Zoe says. She feared that she would not be believed and felt she would be fired if she accused him publicly, or even at her workplace. At the hospital, “They gave me a little crisis counseling brochure and some medicine.”
In addition to her friend, the hospital, and local police, Zoe shared her story (omitting Noth’s identity) with her boss and her mother, as well as seeking out treatment at the UCLA Rape Crisis Center where she received counseling and treatment for several months. Both the treatment center and her former boss also corroborated her account to The Hollywood Reporter.
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Lily’s Story
Lily, now a journalist, reached out to the same outlet in August. “I’m not sure how you go about this sort of story and how you find the other victims,” she wrote in an email.
Lily met Noth in 2015 when she was 25 years old and working as a VIP server at the now-shuttered New York nightclub No.8. She totally recognized him and had already been a fan throughout his career. “I was truly star-struck,” she says. “He was hitting on me, for sure. I was flattered. I knew he was married, which is shameful of me to admit.” At the time, Noth was 60 years old.
Noth got her number and asked her out. “I was like, ‘That’s crazy, Mr. Big is asking me out for dinner.’” And he asked her to meet him at Il Cantinori, which as a fan of the show, Lily knew had been the setting for the SATC episode where Carrie Bradshaw threw her 35th birthday party.
The date seemed to go well and the two had a lot to talk about. Lily admits that she had a little too much to drink, but was still very coherent and nowhere near “black out” drunk.
With the restaurant closing, he told her his apartment was just around the corner. (Noth has owned a Greenwich Village apartment since 1994.) He had a collection of whiskeys that they could sample. “I was not super sexually active, not wild and crazy,” Lily says. Now, she finds it “humiliating” to admit that she didn’t think he would try to sleep with her. “I thought, ‘We’re going to drink whiskey and talk about his acting career.’ It sounds so stupid.”
The apartment was “an amazing place. We were listening to music, and he has all these books about art and fashion. He tried to make out with me. I cautiously entertained it. He’s older and looked older. 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.” He thrust his penis into her mouth, she says.
The next thing she knew, “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.” When it was over, she said, “I went to the bathroom and put on my skirt. I was feeling awful. Totally violated. All of my dreams with this star I loved for years were gone.” She then called an Uber and left his apartment.
Lily’s friend Alex says she called her from the car. “She was pretty hysterical,” she says. Lily told her that he had “pretty forcibly” had sex with her, and Alex said they should call the police. But Lily wouldn’t hear of it. Lily says she doesn’t remember making the call.
After the incident, Noth attempted to see Lily again by calling and texting her repeatedly. Lily shared the text messages with The Hollywood Reporter as well.
In one, Noth messaged: “By the way I have to ask did you enjoy our night last week. I thought it was a lot of fun but I wasn’t quite sure how you felt.” 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 mentioned hoping to meet again for dinner or drinks. Lily continued to respond in a friendly but noncommittal way. At one point, she agreed to dinner, then canceled. She continued to put him off, and they never met again.
Noth has publicly denied that he assaulted the two women, saying the “encounters were consensual.”
“It’s difficult not to question the timing of these stories coming out,” he said in a statement. “I don’t know for certain why they are surfacing now, but I do know this: I did not assault these women.”
“The accusations against me made by individuals I met years, even decades, ago are categorically false,” Noth said in his statement. “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.”
After these allegations became public, the Los Angeles Police Department is now investigating the 2004 rape allegations against Noth. Deadline has reported that the investigation is in the very early stages and may have some crossover with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.
“We are still looking into the nature of the report and trying to narrow down where, when and if where the report was filed,” LAPD Sgt. Bruce Borihanh said officially for the department today.
Noth’s recently retained Lavely & Singer attorney said today that his client has not yet heard from the LAPD. “No one from any law enforcement agency has contacted Chris or any of his representatives,” Andrew Brettler told Deadline. “Obviously if anyone does reach out, we will cooperate fully.