The revival of iconic US TV series Sex and the City has triggered two women who claim they were sexually assaulted by one of the show’s stars to come forward with painful memories they thought they had “buried.”
The return of SATC and its male star Chris Noth – ‘Mr. Big’ – to the small screen in And Just Like That has led two women to come forward with vivid memories of being assaulted by the actor. The pair approached The Hollywood Reporter independently over the past several months to share their stories, which despite taking place 11 years apart on opposite sides of the country have a lot in common.
‘Zoe’, who approached THR in October, opted to “try to go public with who [Noth] is” as the hype was building over the new TV series. Still employed in the entertainment industry, she told the magazine that “for so many years, [she] buried” the memory of the assault, which took place in Los Angeles in 2004 as Zoe was beginning her career in the industry.
While Noth, who was represented by the firm she worked for, was “kind of flirty,” she thought nothing of it, given his celebrity at the time of “peak SATC.” It was only when she stopped by his apartment to return a book he had lent her that things went dreadfully wrong, with a surprise kiss quickly devolving into sexual assault. A friend who took her to the hospital and a former boss she allegedly spoke to both corroborated her story, and Zoe noted that she did not want to end her life like her mother, diagnosed with cancer in 2018 and “haunted” by a sexual assault she had kept quiet for years.
‘Lily’, who came forward in August, was allegedly approached by Noth while working at a New York nightclub, invited to a restaurant shortly before closing time and later shepherded to the actor’s apartment. After “he kept trying” to make out with Lily against her will, he allegedly raped her in a similar fashion to his reported assault on ‘Zoe’. She shared the incident with a friend shortly thereafter, and Noth allegedly sent multiple text messages seemingly attempting to gauge her response to (and minimize) the assault.
Contacted by the magazine, Noth addressed both women’s claims by declaring the accusations “categorically false,” noting that whether “30 years ago or 30 days ago, no always means no” and that the “encounters were consensual.”
“It’s difficult not to question the timing of these stories coming out,” he said.