Actors Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon have weighed in on sexual assault accusations against their Sex And The City co-star Chris Noth, saying they “support the women who have come forward and shared their painful experiences”.
Three women have accused Noth, 67, of sexual abuse. Two approached The Hollywood Reporter (THR) separately, with allegations about incidents said to have happened more than a decade apart.
THR published the stories of “Zoe, now 40,” and “Lily, now 31” on Dec 16, who spoke of rapes that reportedly occurred in Los Angeles in 2004, and New York in 2015.
The third woman’s accusations of being abused by Noth appeared in The Daily Beast the following day.
Noth described the accusations as “categorically false” and he continued to appear in promotional ads for the CBS series, The Equalizer, after the allegations went public.
Then on Dec 20 came the news that he had been fired.
“Chris Noth will no longer film additional episodes of The Equalizer, effective immediately.” CBS and Universal Television announced.
The backlash against the longtime TV actor has been swift.
Parker, Davis, and Nixon, who starred in HBO’s mega-hit series Sex and the City from 1998 to 2004 as well as its current reboot, And Just Like That, weighed in via Twitter on Dec 21.
“We are deeply saddened to hear the allegations against Chris Noth. We support the women who have come forward and shared their painful experiences. We know it must be a very difficult thing to do and we commend them for it.”
— Cynthia Nixon (@CynthiaNixon) December 21, 2021
After the initial THR story, actress Zoe Lister Jones, 39, who had worked with Noth as a guest star on his show Law & Order: Criminal Intent, said in a lengthy Dec 17 Instagram post that she had witnessed Noth being “consistently sexually inappropriate” when she worked in a bar in New York when she was in her twenties.
Lister-Jones said Noth had also behaved inappropriately toward her on the Law & Order set.
Noth has also been dropped by his acting agency. A deal to buy his tequila brand has been cancelled, as has a commercial in which he stars along with actor Ryan Reynolds.
The actor, who played the iconic Mr Big in Sex and the City, reprised his role for And Just Like That, although the character died in the first episode.
It was upon learning that Noth was to star in the sequel to the hit series that made “Lily” come forward.
She was quoted by THR as saying, “seeing that he was reprising his role in Sex and the City set off something in me. For so many years, I buried it.”
It was time, she felt, “to try to go public with who he is.”
In denying the accusations, Noth 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.” /TISG