Chris Noth, the American actor best known as Mr Big from Sex and the City, has been accused of sexual assault by two women who approached The Hollywood Reporter separately.
Noth reprised his role in the show’s recent reboot, And Just Like That. The 10-episode American comedy-drama television series, set 11 years after the events of Sex and the City 2, premiered on HBO Max on December 9.
The two women – 40-year-old Zoe and 31-year-old journalist Lily (names are both pseudonyms) – approached the publication months apart, unknown to each other, and said that the promotions and press reports of And Just Like That triggered painful memories of incidents that allegedly occurred in Los Angeles in 2004 and New York in 2015, respectively.
While Lily reached out to THR in August saying, “I’m not sure how you go about this sort of story and how you find the other victims,” Zoe, who currently works in the entertainment industry, reached out to the publication in October.
Despite fear of the repercussions if her identity is revealed, “seeing that he was reprising his role in Sex and the City set off something in me,” said Zoe, adding, “For so many years, I buried it.”
Deciding it was time to go public, Zoe narrated her story from back in 2004 when she worked an entry-level job at a high profile firm frequented by Noth and other celebrities. Noth used to walk by her desk and flirt with her, she said. That August, Zoe and her friend visited the pool at Noth’s apartment in West Hollywood, after being invited over by the actor. Leaving a book with Zoe, Noth had gone back to his apartment to take a call and had asked her to bring the book back. When she went to his apartment to return the book, he allegedly raped her in his room.
Zoe said that her friend then took her to the hospital. She said that they did not inform the police fearing that no one would believe them and that she would be fired from her job.
On the other hand, Lily, 25 at the time, met 60-year-old Noth at the VIP section of the now-shuttered New York nightclub No.8 in 2015. She said Noth hit on her and she was flattered as a fan from his Law & Order days. Noth asked her out to dinner, but the restaurant they went to was closed so they went for a drink to his apartment, where she said he forcibly had sex with her. “We were in front of a mirror. I was kind of crying as it happened,” she added.
Denying both the allegations against him, Noth sent a statement to THR claiming that the “encounters were consensual.”
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“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,” Noth’s statement read.
However, soon after the allegations surfaced on Thursday, the exercise equipment company Peloton deleted its ad featuring Noth from YouTube and all social media platforms. Actor Ryan Reynolds, who produced the ad through his Maximum Effort marketing agency, also deleted his Twitter and Instagram posts promoting the ad.