Sunday People

He was 55. I was 18 ..I repeatedly said no

Sex and the City’s Chris Noth faces new claim of assault

- By Halina Watts, SHOWBIZ EDITOR

A THIRD woman has accused Sex and the City actor Chris Noth of sexual assault by allegedly groping her in a restaurant when she was 18.

In an exclusive interview with The People, the 30-year-old Canadian, using the pseudonym Ava, said she feared Noth, then 55, would have raped her if she had not escaped after repeatedly saying “no”.

She added: “I tried to make him stop but he wouldn’t. I was humiliated.”

The technology executive claimed Noth, now 67, repeatedly groped her while she was working as a hostess at the Da Marino restaurant in New York in 2010.

Ava said he would regularly turn up drunk, sit at a throne chair and sing to the piano.

She said: “One night he took a liking to me. He was sloppily holding my face and singing to me and then he forcibly pulled me over to the table and was constantly trying to pull me on to his lap. Everybody was laughing.”

At the end of her shift she went into the office to pick up her wages and claimed Noth was there. “He acted as if we had intentiona­lly snuck off together clandestin­ely,” she said.

“He was kissing my face and trying to make out with me. I thought I was very clear, telling him ‘no’. But he was so large and so drunk and I felt so trapped. He was pushing me up against a desk.

“I tried to push his hands away and they hurt the next morning from how forcibly I was pushing him.

“I then tried to convince him that we would have sex somewhere else.”

Ava said she fled the restaurant when they left the office. She claimed the restaurant owners laughed at her when she confronted them about the alleged incident the next day. She never went back

Noth’s publicist said the actor, who plays Mr Big in Sex and the City, “denies this as ever happening and has no idea who this woman is”. The star also faces accusation­s of raping and sexually assaulting two women going by the pseudonyms Zoe, 40, and Lily, 30, in 2004 and 2015 respective­ly.

He denies their claims and insists both encounters were consensual.

Noth’s Hollywood management, A3 Artists Agency, have dropped him. Yesterday he was at his home in New York while his wife, Canadian actress Tara Wilson, 42, was with their two sons in Los Angeles.

halina.watts@people.co.uk

 ?? Picture: SPLASH NEWS ?? TENSE: He faces 3rd claim
SCENE: Throne chairs in diner
STAR: With Sarah Jessica Parker
VENUE: New York Da Marino
NIGHT TO FORGET Ex-waitress says actor repeatedly groped her
Picture: SPLASH NEWS TENSE: He faces 3rd claim SCENE: Throne chairs in diner STAR: With Sarah Jessica Parker VENUE: New York Da Marino NIGHT TO FORGET Ex-waitress says actor repeatedly groped her

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