More fallout from assault allegations

America's NBC network has scrapped a sitcom it was planning with Bill Cosby amid the storm of sexually assault claims.

The news came as an interview emerged showing the 77-year-old stonewalling questions about the claims – and then urging the reporter not to release the footage of his 'no comment'.

In a statement, NBC confirmed their project was 'no longer in development' – a second blow to the comedian's career after Netflix shelved his latest stand-up special, due to be released next week.

The move came after Janice Dickinson, a model and TV presenter, said Cosby had sexually assaulted her after a dinner date in Lake Tahoe, California, 1982. She claimed that he molested her after giving her a glass of wine and a pill.

Cosby’s attorney Martin D. Singer issued a statement calling Dickinson’s accusation 'a lie', adding: 'There is a glaring contradiction between what she is claiming now for the first time and what she wrote in her own book and what she told the media back in 2002... that she refused to sleep with Mr Cosby. Documentary proof and Ms. Dickinson’s own words show that her new story about something she now claims happened back in 1982 is a fabricated lie.'

Singer previously insisted the comedian would not dignify 'decade-old, discredited' allegations – and when he appeared in a radio interview last week, he greeted questions with silence.

Now new footage has emerged of Cosby insistently batting away the question with the words 'No, no, we don’t answer that' – and then telling reporters from the Associated Press they should have the 'integrity' not to make the film public:

Cosby's lawyer later issued a follow-up statement to say that his initial statement about discredited accusations did not refer to Andrea Constand, an accuser whose civil action against him was settled in 2006.

Cosby's reputation as a family-friendly entertainer is begin eroded by the allegations, although he has never been charged in any case.

In 2005, Californian lawyer Tamara Lucier Green claimed that in 1969 Cosby drugged and assaulted her. Also in 2005, a woman called Beth Ferrier alleged that in 1984 Cosby drugged her coffee; she passed out and woke up with her clothes partially removed.

Earlier this week, journalist Joan Tarshis wrote an essay claiming that Cosby raped her in 1969 when she was 19.

Published: 20 Nov 2014