Beverly Johnson: Bill Cosby drugged me

Model Beverly Johnson is sharing her Bill Cosby story.

It happened in the "mid-80s," she says in a first person essay in Vanity Fair. And it sounds similar to many of the stories we've heard from women who have been accusing the star of drugging them and then sexually assaulting them.

Johnson starts by recalling being "in awe" of Cosby in the 1960s, '70s and '80s.
"He was funny, smart, and even elegant—all those wonderful things many white Americans didn't associate with people of color."

She was thrilled when one day an agent called her to invite her to audition for a role on The Cosby Show. She went to a taping and met Cosby. He invited her to his home. She had one pleasant visit and he invited her to come over again.

That next time didn't go as smoothly.

Cosby offered her a cappuccino from the espresso machine on his bar.

"I told him I didn't drink coffee that late in the afternoon because it made getting to sleep at night more difficult. He wouldn't let it go. He insisted that his espresso machine was the best model on the market and promised I'd never tasted a cappuccino quite like this one.

"It's nuts, I know, but it felt oddly inappropriate arguing with Bill Cosby so I took a few sips of the coffee just to appease him."

And that moment, she knew.

"Now let me explain this: I was a top model during the 70s, a period when drugs flowed at parties and photo shoots like bottled water at a health spa," says Johnson. "I'd had my fun and experimented with my fair share of mood enhancers. I knew by the second sip of the drink Cosby had given me that I'd been drugged—and drugged good."

She says he motioned for her to come to him, as though acting out a scene.

"He put his hands around my waist, and I managed to put my hand on his shoulder in order to steady myself.

As I felt my body go completely limp, my brain switched into automatic-survival mode. That meant making sure Cosby understood that I knew exactly what was happening at that very moment."

She called him a "mother-----."

And she kept on yelling at him, she says. He didn't like it.

"What happened next is somewhat cloudy for me because the drug was in fuller play by that time. I recall his seething anger at my tirade and then him grabbing me by my left arm hard and yanking all 110 pounds of me down a bunch of stairs as my high heels clicked and clacked on every step. I feared my neck was going to break with the force he was using to pull me down those stairs."

They reached the front door of his brownstone and then began waving down taxis.

"When one stopped, Cosby opened the door, shoved me into it and slammed the door behind me without ever saying a word. I somehow managed to tell the driver my address and before blacking out ..."

After a few days, Johnson says she later called Cosby's house to confront him. His wife, Camille, answered saying it was too late to be calling (it was 11 p.m.). Johnson never called again.

"At a certain moment it became clear that I would be fighting a losing battle with a powerful man so callous he not only drugged me, but he also gave me the number to the bedroom he shared with his wife. How could I fight someone that boldly arrogant and out of touch? In the end, just like the other women, I had too much to lose to go after Bill Cosby."

She was reluctant to speak, and mentions not writing of the incident in her 2013 memoir because "I didn't want to get involved in a he-said/she-said situation."

But as women have come forward in recent weeks, Johnson decided she had to speak up. "Now that other women have come forward with their nightmare stories, I join them."