Sex and the City and Law & Order star Chris Noth has been accused by two women of sexually assaulting them in two separate incidents. The Hollywood Reporter broke the story of the two women, who were identified by the pseudonyms Zoe and Lily for the sake of anonymity. The incidents reportedly occurred several years apart, with Zoe reporting an incident from 2004 while Lily reported a strikingly similar incident from 2015.
Both women offered up detailed accounts of the assault and many of the details concerning the time before and after the assault have been corroborated by multiple witnesses. The two women, who do not know each other, were approached by THR earlier this year but decided to come forward after the HBO Sex and the City revival And Just Like That… debuted. Both claim that the press surrounding the series reboot generated painful memories of the respective assaults.
Approached for comment, Noth offered the following statement:
“The accusations against me made by individuals I met years, even decades, ago are categorically false. 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. The encounters were consensual. It’s difficult not to question the timing of these stories coming out. I don’t know for certain why they are surfacing now, but I do know this: I did not assault these women.”
Zoe, now 40, was a recent college grad in 2004 and working at a firm in LA frequented by several celebrities ⏤ including Noth ⏤ when she was approached by the actor, who was then riding a wave of fame for his role in Sex and the City. “He would walk by my desk and flirt with me. He somehow got my number from the directory and was leaving messages on my work phone. My boss was like, ‘Mr. Big’s leaving messages on your voicemail,'” she stated. Noth later approached her with an invitation to use the pool at his West Hollywood apartment.
Zoe, who had a friend living in the complex and had frequented the pool beforehand, agreed to meet Noth there. After she, her friend, and Noth spent time in the complex hot tub, Noth invited Zoe to his apartment with the pretext of returning a book he had shown her earlier in the day. When she entered the apartment, the actor began kissing her. 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,” according to reports. Afterward, her friend, noticing Zoe’s extreme change in demeanor, insisted on taking her to Cedars-Sinai hospital, where they met with police. Zoe refused to identify Noth as the assailant, as she felt she would not be believed. Cedars-Sinai does not keep records dating back to the time of the incident.
Lily, 31 now and 25 at the time of the alleged assault, was a server at No. 8, a New York nightclub, when she met the then 60-year-old Noth there in 2015. Lily admits to having been a big fan of the actor, both for his role as Mr. Big in SATC as well as his star-making turn on Law & Order. Despite being advised not to by a friend, Lily agreed to have dinner with Noth. The two met at Il Cantinori, a restaurant featured prominently in a SATC episode. When Lily showed up at the restaurant at the time that Noth proposed, the kitchen had already closed and the pair instead drank wine at the restaurant’s bar.
When the bar closed, Noth invited Lily back to his Greenwich Village apartment “just around the corner” to sample the actor’s whiskey collection. “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.” Noth proceeded to have sex with Lily “from the back in a chair. We were in front of a mirror. I was kind of crying as it happened.” Immediately afterward, “I was feeling awful. Totally violated. All of my dreams with this star I loved for years were gone.”
Neither Sex and the City and And Just Like That… producer HBO nor any of Noth’s co-stars have offered any comment on the allegations at this time.
