Chris Noth pulled from CBS' "The Equalizer" amid sexual assault allegations

Chris Noth has been fired from the CBS drama "The Equalizer" amid allegations of sexual assault by two women in 2004 and 2015. 

"Chris Noth will no longer film additional episodes of The Equalizer, effective immediately," CBS and Universal Television said in a joint statement to CBS News.

Noth, who portrays former CIA agent William Bishop on the show, appeared on 17 episodes of the show in 2021, according to IMDB, and is slated for one new episode in 2022 that has already been filmed. He will also appear in re-runs of the show.

The allegations against Noth surfaced last week when The Hollywood Reporter published details of the accounts of two women who used pseudonyms. One woman said Noth raped her in 2004  in his Los Angeles apartment. She was 22 at the time, and said she received medical treatment and counseling following the alleged assault. 

A second woman in the report said Noth raped her in 2015 in his New York apartment. Both women told The Hollywood Reporter they wanted to come forward after seeing promotions for "And Just Like That," HBO Max's reboot series for "Sex and the City." 

Noth has denied both of the allegations and said that the encounters were "consensual." 

"I don't know for certain why they are surfacing now, but I do know this: I did not assault these women," he told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement last week. 

After those two women came forward, actress Zoe Lister-Jones, who worked with Noth on NBC's "Law and Order," posted on Instagram about her own alleged encounters with Noth. 

She said that while she was in her twenties, she worked at a club that Noth owned in New York City. While there, she saw him be "consistently sexually inappropriate" with another female promoter, she said. And that same year, while she was a guest star on "Law and Order," she said there was an episode during which Noth "was drunk on set." 

"During my interrogation scene he had a 22 oz. of beer under the table that he would drink in between takes. In one take he got close to me, sniffed my neck, and whispered, 'You smell good,'" she said. "I didn't say anything. My friend at the club never said anything. It's so rare that we do."

Lister-Jones said that her experiences "are small in comparison" to the alleged assaults that took place, but that "navigating predation at any level is a burden all women have to bear." 

"Chris Noth capitalized on the fantasy that women believed Mr. Big [his character in "Sex and the City"] represented. And those fantasies often create environments where emotional confusion thrives," she said. "...F*** Mr. Big." 

Noth's "And Just Like That" and "Sex and the City" co-stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon also released a short joint statement on the matter Monday night, saying they are "deeply saddened" by the allegations.

"We support the women who have come forward and shared their painful experiences," the actresses said. "We know it must be a very difficult thing to do and we commend them for it." 

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