Content warning: this article discusses sexual assault and violence and may be distressing to some readers.
Chris Noth has broken his almost two-year silence since being accused of sexual assault by multiple women in 2021.
In an interview with USA Today, the Sex and The City star denied the claims, stressing that all of his extramarital relationships were consensual.
“I strayed on my wife, and it’s devastating to her and not a very pretty picture. What it isn’t is a crime.”
“I’m not going to lay down and just say it’s over,” Noth added. “It’s a salacious story, but it’s just not a true one. And I can’t just say, ‘Well, OK, that’s it for me’ because of that. I’m an actor. I have other things that I want to do creatively. And I have children to support.”
Noth also told the publication about his decision to step back from public life in the wake of the allegations.
“I can’t just rest on my laurels. So yeah, I have enough to let a year drift, but I don’t know how to gauge or judge getting back into the club, the business, because corporations are frightened,” Noth said.
The first allegations came in December 2021, just one week after the release of And Just Like That…when two women came forward.
In a report by The Hollywood Reporter, two women separately approached the publication with their own accounts of inappropriate interactions with the Sex And The City star. They also specified that they felt inspired to speak up after watching Noth’s appearances in the franchise’s recent reboot, and the subsequent media storm that followed for him as a result of his character’s fate. Noth has categorically denied allegations of assault, telling THR the encounters were consensual.
“Seeing that he was reprising his role in Sex and the City set off something in me,” one of the women told THR, who spoke to the publication under the pseudonym ‘Zoe’. She continued: “For so many years, I buried it.”
For Zoe’s account, THR state that the telling of events have been backed up by her former co-workers and friends. According to her, the incident took place back in 2004, when she was 22-years-old and working at an entertainment firm where Noth “regularly had business,” as per THR.
“This was peak Sex and the City,” Zoe’s former boss told the outlet. “He was like a god to us.”
Allegedly, Noth would hold conversations with Zoe at her desk, even apparently leaving her flirtatious voicemails which Zoe felt were harmless at the time.
“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’.”
However, Zoe alleged that the actor invited her to one of his apartments in West Hollywood and met her at the building’s pool. She claims that he returned to his apartment without his book, so she went up to return it to him.
According to THR, once she returned to his apartment, Zoe says that Noth pulled her in and kissed her where she “tentatively” kissed back before saying, “Thank you, I’m going back to my friend.”
However, Zoe said Noth moved her to the bed, pulled off her shorts and bikini bottom, and raped her.
“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.”
Following the incident, Zoe explained that she went straight to a friend’s apartment who lived in the building. That friend, who is now a child psychologist, told THR that Zoe was “strikingly different” after the encounter with Noth.
“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,” the friend recounted to THR. “It was a very weird change. It was not like her. We left. Riding the elevator was awkward. She wouldn’t talk. She wouldn’t make eye contact.”
The friend said that they took Zoe to Cedars-Sinai Hospital, where Zoe told staff she had been assaulted.
“I had stitches. Two police officers came. I wouldn’t say who it was,” Zoe recalled, adding that she feared she wouldn’t be believed—or even might be fired from her job—if she accused Noth publicly. At the hospital, “They gave me a little crisis counselling brochure and some medicine.”
THR contacted the hospital but discovered it did not keep records dating back to 2004. However, the UCLA Rape Crisis Centre, which Zoe said she visited in January 2006 on advice from the hospital, confirmed it had treated her.
With the second account against Noth, the woman—using the pseudonym ‘Lily’—allegedly met Noth in 2015 while at a nightclub where she worked as a server.
“He was hitting on me, for sure,” Lily claimed. “I was flattered. I knew he was married, which is shameful of me to admit.” According to Lily, after the pair shared drinks at New York restaurant, Il Cantinori, Noth invited her back to his apartment.
“I thought, ‘We’re going to drink whisky and talk about his acting career,’” Lily said. “It sounds so stupid.”
However, once they returned to the actor’s home, Lily alleged that Noth repeatedly attempted to kiss her, then removed his pants and “thrust his penis into her mouth.” She continued, saying: “He said marriage is a sham. Monogamy is not real.”
She told the publication that “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”.
“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.”
According to Lily, Noth later mentioned the evening in a series of exchanged text messages to her, that were reviewed by the publication.
According to THR, the actor wrote in a text message, “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.”
“Hmm… I certainly enjoyed your company,” Lily responded. “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.”
Lily also claimed that the two made plans to talk the events of the night through, however, they never ended up meeting again.
Since the allegations were released, Noth has denied allegations of assault, releasing a statement to THR where he claims both incidents were consensual.
“The accusations against me made by individuals I met years, even decades, ago are categorically false,” Noth’s statement read.
“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.”
If you are experiencing sexual abuse or other unwanted behaviour, please contact Rape & Domestic Violence Services Australia.
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