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Tuesday 27 January 2015

Former Hollywood Executive says comedian took advantage of her 36 years ago


Former Hollywood executive Cindra Ladd, the wife of Oscar-winning producer and former MGM Chair Alan Ladd Jr., is the latest woman to come forward against the star after opening up about one specific night she spent with the comedian 36 years ago in a personal essay published on The Huffington Post.
"In 1969 I met Bill Cosby while working in New York for the late film producer Ray Stark," Ladd began in the piece. "I was a 21-year-old single woman in the world's most exciting city. He was a 32-year-old internationally known comedian and television star, one of the most likeable and popular entertainers in the business. He asked for my number and I gave it to him."
Ladd explained that she and her roommate at the time would hang out with Cosby, who was married, and nothing out of the ordinary would occur, so she didn't think anything of it. But then things allegedly changed.
"One night we were going out to a movie. We agreed to meet at an apartment that he said belonged to a friend of his. I had a terrible headache but didn't want to cancel the evening. He told me he had a miracle cure his doctor had given him that would get rid of the headache. He went into another room and came back with a capsule. I asked a couple of times what it was. Each time he reassured me, asking, 'Don't you trust me?' Of course I did. This was Bill Cosby."
However, Ladd claims in the essay she woke up the next morning with a "vague recollection of feeling like I was floating" during the previous night's activities, but added, "What I do recall, vividly and clearly, is waking up the next morning nude in the bed of his friend's apartment and seeing Cosby wearing a white terrycloth bathrobe and acting as if there was nothing unusual," she wrote. "It was obvious to me that he had had sex with me. I was horrified, embarrassed and ashamed. There was a mirror above the bed, which shocked me further."
Ladd wrote that after some "awkward small talk" she left the apartment and "broke down crying" in the elevator on her way out. "It never occurred to me to go to the police," she revealed. "It was a different time and 'date rape' was a concept that didn't exist. I just kept asking myself over and over in disbelief why this had happened to me. Other than my roommate, I did not discuss that night with anyone for 36 years."
She also mentioned, "This is the first time I have chosen to speak out about that night. It is also the last time I intend to address it publicly. I have no plans to sue, I don't want or need money. I have no plans for a press conference or for doing any interviews."
So why speak out now? "The simple answer is that it's the right thing to do. The truth deserves to be known. As I write this, more than 20 women have come forward, many with stories that are remarkably similar to mine."
Ladd continued, "After having done a lot of work on myself, I realize that we are only as sick as the secrets we keep. Once those secrets are spoken aloud, even if to just one person, they lose their power. I no longer feel the shame that kept me silent. Yes, I could have told my story years ago, and in hindsight I probably should have. It's time now that my voice be added and to finally pull the curtain back from this dark moment in my life."


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