Cindra Ladd, a former film industry exec and wife of producer Alan Ladd Jr., is the latest woman to accuse Bill Cosby of raping and drugging her years ago.
In a first-person article published by Huffington Post, Ladd recounts her experience with Cosby when she was 21 and working for producer Ray Stark in New York. Ladd asserts that after becoming friendly in a nonsexual way with Cosby, she was heading to a movie with him one evening when he gave her a pill that he said would help her headache.
“For more than 45 years I have tried to recall exactly what happened that night. To this day it remains a blur. I have a vague recollection of feeling like I was floating while walking through Times Square and watching some kind of Japanese samurai movie with him. I don’t remember where the theater was nor very much of the evening,” Ladd wrote. “What I do recall, vividly and clearly, is waking up the next morning nude in the bed of his friend’s apartment and seeing Cosby wearing a white terrycloth bathrobe and acting as if there was nothing unusual. It was obvious to me that he had had sex with me. I was horrified, embarrassed and ashamed.”
Ladd wrote that it “never occurred to me” to contact law enforcement, given Cosby’s stature as an entertainer and in an era before “date rape” was recognized as a crime. She told her husband about the incident nine years ago, when another woman accused Cosby of similar acts, Ladd wrote.
Ladd joins more than two dozen women who have come forward during the past few months to accuse Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them. The scandal has cost the 77-year-old comedian a sitcom development deal at NBC and a comedy special that was to air in November on Netflix. Ticket sales to Cosby’s live appearances have fallen sharply in many cities although he has dates scheduled through at least May, according to his website.
Reps for Cosby have denied many of the allegations. Friends and family members, including his wife Camille, have recently criticized the news media for the damage done to the entertainer’s reputation and for failure to scrutinize the women making the claims.
Reps for Cosby did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Ladd’s allegations.
Variety
