Janice Dickinson is a figure of fun. An ex-model whose trout-pout graced our screens in the earlier ‘cycles’ of America’s Next Top Model, she’s since joined the likes of Brian Harvey and David Van Day whose once-talents have been eclipsed by their inability to make enough money to keep themselves out of the relegation zone where celebrities turn into reality show contestants who have to eat wichetty grubs for our amusement. She’s a clown, a lol, never to be taken seriously, apart from when our sides start to ache when we remember that time she got drunk on TV and fell down some stairs and had a massive go at some models.
But that changes. Right now. The record scratches and we have to prick our ears up and listen. Janice might have a history of drug and alcohol problems, a face structured by extensive plastic surgery and a propensity to get her boobs out but none of that gets in the way of the fact that her claims about Bill Cosby’s sexual abuse of her need to be taken very seriously.
She’s one of 39 women to have alleged that Cosby, a 77-year-old American comedian (come on, you never watched The Cosby Show?), has drugged and/or sexually assaulted them.
Her allegation? That in 1982, she’d just got out of rehab and Cosby got in contact about a job, telling her to come to Lake Tahoe to discuss it over dinner. After dinner, she claims he gave her a pill to ease her period pains: ‘The next morning I woke up, and I wasn't wearing my pajamas, and I remember before I passed out that I had been sexually assaulted by this man,’
She added, in an exclusive interview with ET in 2014: ‘Before I woke up in the morning, the last thing I remember was Bill Cosby in a patchwork robe, dropping his robe and getting on top of me. And I remember a lot of pain.’
Cosby denies all of the allegations levied at him by all 39 women, and has called Janice a ‘liar’, his lawyer saying that her rendition of events contradicts something she said in a 2002 interview.
But Janice will not stand for being called a liar about this, and so is suing Cosby. She told CNN: ‘I want justice done. I want Lisa Bloom [her lawyer] to depose Bill Cosby, get him on the stand and in front of a jury and let the law decide’
And Bloom added: ‘Calling Dickinson a liar is a defamatory statement under the law ... and that's the mistake Bill Cosby made.’ You might think that suing for a sexual assault or rape is a weird move, but it seems to be the only option in America when the police won’t charge someone for a crime, and besides, Janice is suing for defamation because it’s actually too late for her to sue on the grounds of rape. Bloom explained: ‘It was too late to for her to sue for rape or for drugging, but once he through his representatives called her a liar she had a fresh claim for defamation and that's the lawsuit that we filed today.’
It’s weird that ‘historical’ allegations are deemed to be somehow less valid than recent ones, so much so that after a certain time the police will just drop them, like a cold case but with no body. What’s the cut-off point for someone to no longer be affected by a serious sexual assault? Nine months? Two years? Who decides where that cut off point is? Because the longer an attacker isn’t punished for their actions, the longer they get away with what they’ve done, another year safer in the knowledge that they’ll never be caught.
It might be tough to believe the word of someone who’s best known for making a joke of themselves on TV. But being silly on TV doesn’t preclude someone from being a sexual predator (here’s looking at you, Jimmy Savile) so why should it indicate that someone hasn’t been sexually assaulted? Plus, Janice's celebrity might have waned over the years, but while she might not make, say, the most credible judge on a modelling competition, as someone who's been brave enough to speak out about alleged abuse, waiving her right to anonymity, she is credible as a survivor who can bring conversation and, hopefully, positive action to this case.
We hope for the sake of everyone involved that the truth is found - hopefully via a fair trial - and that Cosby’s bizarre response to questions about the allegations, claiming: ‘I have been in this business over 52 years, and I have never seen anything like this…reality is the situation. And I can’t speak,’ is taken into consideration when any big decisions are made.
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Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.