Hollywood executive Cindra Ladd is the latest woman claiming that she was sexually assaulted by Bill Cosby.
Penning a column for The Huffington Post, titled “Cosby: ‘Trust Me'” Ladd claims that she befriended Cosby in 1969 when she was a 21-year-old working in New York City. Though Cosby was married, the two regularly hung out platonically, spending time at Ladd’s apartment with her roommate and watching movies. She said that nothing was out of the ordinary until one night, when she had a headache and Cosby offered a pill, which he called a “miracle cure.”
“I asked a couple of times what it was,” she wrote. “Each time he reassured me, asking ‘Don’t you trust me?’ Of course I did. This was Bill Cosby.”
Ladd says that she has a vague recollection of that night, barely recalling the walk to the theater or the movie. What she does remember, however, is waking up the next morning nude in a bed at Cosby’s friend’s apartment. She said Cosby was wearing a terrycloth robe and acting as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Ladd left the apartment, but she never thought to report the incident.
“It was a different time, and ‘date rape’ was a concept that just didn’t exist,” she wrote. “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.”
It wasn’t until multiple women began coming forward that Ladd realized that she wasn’t alone, and she decided to tell her story. She said that she isn’t looking for money or fame, but she wanted to come forward because it was the right thing to do. Though Cosby has not publicly commented on the accusers, his reps have refuted the claims.
“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,” Ladd wrote. “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.”
Ladd, a former entertainment executive, is the wife of Oscar-winning producer and former MGM Chair Alan Ladd Jr.