Third woman accuses Mr Big of sexual assault
As Sex And The City actor is dropped by his agents…
A THIRD woman has accused Sex And The City’s ‘Mr Big’ of sexual assault. Actor Chris Noth was dropped by his Hollywood talent agency yesterday after a woman using the pseudonym ‘Ava’ claimed that he forced himself on her when she was 18.
‘Ava’ – now a 30-year-old tech executive – alleged that Noth attacked her in the back office of a Manhattan restaurant. Two other women last week accused the actor of rape. The 67-year-old star has vehemently denied the allegations and has hired ‘pitbull’ criminal defence lawyer Andrew Brettler, who also represents Prince Andrew.
‘Ava’ claimed she befriended Noth in 2010 when she was a waitress at Da Marino, a celebrity Italian restaurant near New York’s Times Square. The actor, then 55, was a regular and was ‘often drunk’, according to ‘Ava’.
She alleged he first tried to drunkenly grope her before following her to a back office when she went to collect her pay cheque. She claimed he pushed her against a desk and forced his hand under her skirt. ‘He wasn’t hearing “no”,’ she alleged, adding that she ‘escaped’ by promising to meet him elsewhere. A spokesman for Noth yesterday described the claims as ‘a complete fabrication’. The first two rape claims involved a then 22-yearold in Los Angeles in 2004 and a 25-year-old nightclub worker in New York in 2015.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, both said they came forward after being ‘triggered’ by the publicity earlier this month surrounding the
sequel to Sex And The City, called And Just Like That and starring Sarah Jessica Parker.
Noth denies the allegations while police in Los Angeles are ‘looking into’ the claims. Meanwhile, Zoe Lister-Jones, 39, his co-star in the hit US drama Law & Order, described him as a ‘sexual predator’ who swigged beer between scenes and once ‘sniffed her neck’ and whispered: ‘You smell good.’
Father-of-two Noth has been married to Canadian actress Tara Wilson for nine years.
In a statement, the actor said: ‘The accusations against me made by individuals I met years ago are categorically false… No always means no – that’s a line I did not cross. The encounters were consensual.’