Don Lemon to Cosby accuser: 'You know, there are ways not to perform oral sex'
CNN host apologizes for awkward exchange
Joan Tarshis, one of several women to recently accuse Bill Cosby of rape, told CNN's Don Lemon earlier this week that after the alleged rape she tried to talk the comedian out of having sex with her when she was 19.
"I said, 'If you have sex with me, your wife is going to know it because you probably will infect her,'" Tarshis said Monday. "I thought I was very clever in saying that, but he was more clever. And instead he made me have oral sex with him, which was really just horrible."
On Tuesday, Tarshis returned for a follow-up interview with Lemon, who asked why she didn't bite the comedian during the alleged encounter.
From the rather awkward transcript:
LEMON: Can I ask you this, because — and please, I don't mean to be crude, OK?
TARSHIS: Yeah.
LEMON: Because I know some of you — and you said this last night, that he — you lied to him and said, "I have an infection, and if you rape me, or if you do — if you have intercourse with me, then you will probably get it and give it to your wife."
TARSHIS: Right.
LEMON: And you said he made you perform oral sex.
TARSHIS: Right.
LEMON: You — you know, there are ways not to perform oral sex if you didn't want to do it.
TARSHIS: Oh. Um, I was kind of stoned at the time, and quite honestly, that didn't even enter my mind. Now I wish it would have.
LEMON: Right. Meaning the using of the teeth, right?
TARSHIS: Yes, that's what I'm thinking you're —
LEMON: As a weapon.
TARSHIS: Yeah, I didn't even think of it.
LEMON: Biting. So, um —
TARSHIS: Ouch.
LEMON: Yes. I had to ask. I mean, it is, yeah.
TARSHIS: Yes. No, it didn't cross my mind.
On Wednesday, Lemon issued an on-air apology for his remarks.
"I would never want to suggest that any victim could have prevented a rape," Lemon said. "If my question to her struck anyone as insensitive, I am sorry, as that was certainly not my intention."
On Tuesday, Cosby's attorney, Marty Singer, fired back at allegations made by former model Janice Dickinson, who claims Cosby sexually assaulted her in Lake Tahoe in 1982.
“Her new story claiming that she had been sexually assaulted is a defamatory fabrication,” Singer said in a letter to TheWrap.com.
In an interview with "Entertainment Tonight," Dickinson described the alleged attack.
“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,” Dickinson claimed. “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. The next morning I remember waking up with my pajamas off and there was semen in between my legs.”
Tarshis described a similar encounter with Cosby.
"We went up to his bungalow," she told Lemon Monday. "He made me a drink, and very shortly after that I just passed out. I woke up or came to very groggily, with him removing my underwear."
“Over the last several weeks, decade-old, discredited allegations against Mr. Cosby have resurfaced,” his representative said Sunday. “The fact that they are being repeated does not make them true. Mr. Cosby does not intend to dignify these allegations with any comment. He would like to thank all his fans for the outpouring of support and assure them that, at age 77, he is doing his best work. There will be no further statement from Mr. Cosby or any of his representatives.”
Netflix said Tuesday it was postponing Cosby's upcoming standup comedy special, scheduled to premiere Nov. 27, but did not say why. On Wednesday, NBC announced it is scrapping a Bill Cosby project in wake of mounting sexual assault allegations.
