Fourth woman accuses Sex and the City star Chris Noth of sexual assault
Lisa Gentile (L) and Chris Noth. (Zoom/Getty Images)
Singer-songwriter Lisa Gentile is the fourth woman to publicly accuse Chris Noth of sexual assault.
The country star said at a news conference Thursday (23 December) that Noth, 67, forcibly groped her in her New York apartment almost 20 years ago.
She alleged that Noth told her he would “ruin her career” if she ever told anybody.
Gentile said that she first met Noth at Da Marino, a midtown Manhattan restaurant they were both regulars at. It’s the same location that another of Noth’s accusers claims to have met the actor, who played the brooding Mr Big in the HBO series.
Gentile said that the pair became acquaintances over the years, and in 2002, Noth offered her a ride home and asked to see her apartment.
“He was slobbering all over me, and I quickly became uncomfortable,” she told reporters over a Zoom video call. “He became more aggressive, put both hands on my breasts and began squeezing them very hard over my shirt.
Gentile said that she “grabbed his hands with my hands and tried to stop it,” before Noth allegedly pulled her hands towards his penis.
“I finally managed to push them away and get out of his grasp and yell: ‘No, I don’t want this’,” she added.
Actor Chris Noth. (Mark Sagliocco/FilmMagic)
Noth then became “extremely angry and started screaming and calling me a tease and a bitch”, she said, “and stormed out of my apartment”.
She claims he called her the following day and warned: “If I ever told about what happened the night before that he would ruin my career that I would never see him again and that he would blacklist me from the business.”
But seemingly emboldened by three anonymous women who have accused Noth of sexual assault and rape, Gentile has now shared her account.
Her attorney, Gloria Allred, said the alleged incident left her client “traumatised” and added: “It’s had a very serious emotional impact on her.”
She cannot bring forward a civil or criminal case against Noth, however, as as the statute of limitations has expired in the state of New York.
Chris Noth, dropped from TV shows and ad campaigns, denies sexual assault
Two women earlier this month accused Chris Noth of sexually assaulting them.
Using the pseudonyms of Zoe, 40, and Lily, 31, they came forward separately to the The Hollywood Reporter with historic allegations.
Zoe said Noth raped her in 2004, when she was 22. Lily, meanwhile, said Noth assaulted her in 2015 after taking her out for a date in Da Marino.
A third woman, a former Da Marino hostess, said she was 18 when she met then 55-year-old Noth. She alleges he was drunk at the restaurants and reportedly “pressed [her] onto his erection”.
Noth has strenuously denied all claims to date, but the fallout has seen Peloton pulled an ad campaign starring the actor, and CBS ousting him from TV drama The Equalizer.
Sarah Jessica Parker and Chris Noth in Sex and the City. (Debra L Rothenberg/FilmMagic)
His Sex and the City and And Just Like That… co-stars said they were “deeply saddened” by the allegations.
“We support the women who have come forward and shared their painful experiences,” Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis said in matching statements on Instagram.
“We know it must be a very difficult thing to do and we commend them for it.”
In a previous statement, Noth said the allegations against him were “categorically false”.
“These stories could’ve been from 30 years ago or 30 days ago – no actually means no – this is a line I did not cross,” he said.
“The encounters were consensual. It’s difficult not to question the timing of these stories coming out.
“I don’t know for certain why they are surfacing now, but I do know this: I did not assault these women.”
PinkNews contacted Chris Noth’s publicist for comment on the latest allegations.
