Bill Cosby: 35 accusers speak to New York Magazine
Thirty-five of the women who have accused Bill Cosby of drugging or sexually assaulting them -- or both -- have been photographed and interviewed by New York Magazine in a striking new cover story.
The women, who range in ages from their 20s to 80s, are pictured sitting in chairs on the front cover of the July 27 issue. They include supermodels Beverley Johnson and Janice Dickinson, as well as journalist Joan Tarshis.
"One by one, they came forward, finding safety in their staggering number and a world that was finally ready to believe them," according to the magazine.
The online edition of New York Magazine, which appeared to have crashed Monday morning, features their personal stories, along with video interviews and intimate portraits taken by Amanda Demme.
"The group of women Cosby allegedly assaulted functions almost as a longitudinal study," the magazine explains, "both for how an individual woman, on her own, deals with such trauma over the decades and for how the culture at large has grappled with rape over the same time period...In the '60s, when the first alleged assault by Cosby occurred, rape was considered to be something violent committed by a stranger...But among younger women, and particularly online, there is a strong sense now that speaking up is the only thing to do, that a woman claiming her own victimhood is more powerful than any other weapon in the fight against rape."
The New York article comes on the heels of new revelations from 2005 testimony in which Cosby admitted, under oath, that he obtained sedatives with the intent of giving them to women to have sex with them.
Cosby, 78, has denied any wrongdoing.
Since last fall, the comedian's career has taken a nose-dive as he's watched reruns of "The Cosby Show" get pulled, his upcoming sitcom get canceled and his statue removed from the Walt Disney World theme park.
