Zoe Lister-Jones claims that Chris Noth was sexually inappropriate to women at NYC club – Daily Mail

A former guest star on Law and Order: Criminal Intent has added her name to the growing chorus of women accusing actor Chris Noth of sexual misconduct.

In an Instagram story on Thursday, actress Zoe Lister-Jones detailed her encounters with the embattled actor, claiming that he was ‘sexually inappropriate’ to women who worked at a New York City club he owned, and sniffed her neck while drunk on set of the detective show.

Her allegations come just hours after The Hollywood Reporter published two other women’s claimed he raped and sexually abused them.

Since then, a newspaper clipping has also emerged featuring claims by model Beverly Johnson who claims that Noth had attacked her and threatened to kill her while they were dating in the 1990s. 

The Los Angeles Police Department has now said they are not investigating the Sex and the City star ‘at this point’ on claims he raped a woman in his LA apartment in 2004, as Noth, 67, vehemently denied all allegations of sexual abuse.

Noth admitted to having ‘consensual encounters’ with the two accusers mentioned in the Hollywood Reporter story but strongly denied any abuse. 

DailyMail.com has reached out Noth for further comment.  

Lister-Jones, 39, became the first woman to publicly call out Noth for alleged sexually inappropriate behavior in her Instagram story Thursday night.

She wrote that she was inspired to come out with her story after the two women – who used the pseudonyms Zoe, now 40, and Lily, now 31 – told The Hollywood Reporter their stories.

The actress known for her work on Life in Pieces began her statement: ‘Last week, my friend asked me how I felt about Mr. Big’s death on And Just Like That, and I said honestly, I felt relieved,’ she wrote, referring to Noth’s role on Sex and the City and its spin-off.

‘He asked why, and I told him it was because I couldn’t separate the actor from the man, and the man is a sexual predator. 

‘My friend was alarmed at my word choice. And to be honest, so was I.

‘I hadn’t thought of the man in so many years, and yet there was a virility to my language that came from somewhere deep and buried.’

Lister-Jones then explained: ‘In my twenties, I worked at a club in New York that Chris Noth owned and on the few occasions, he would show up, he was consistently sexually inappropriate with a fellow female promoter.’ 

‘That same year, I was a guest star on Law and Order, and it was his first episode returning as a detective after “SATC,”‘ 

‘He was drunk on set,’ she alleged in her statement, noting: ‘During my interrogation scene he had a 22 ounce beer under the table that he would drink in between takes.

‘In one take, he got close to me, sniffed my neck and whispered, “You smell good.”

‘I didn’t say anything. My friend at the club never said anything. It’s so rare that we do.’

‘Part of being a woman in this world is taking a certain amount of pride in knowing how to handle yourself in these situations,’ she continued. 

‘In denying their impact as a means of survival. And burying the feelings that come with the transgressions that we have been taught are simply to be expected.

‘My experiences are small in comparison to the accounts of assault that have so bravely been shared today.

‘Navigating predation at any level is a burden all woman have to bear. And for the most part there is no accountability and no consequence.

‘Chris Noth capitalized on the fantasy that women believe Mr. Big represented,’ she alleged, concluding: ‘F*** Mr. Big.’ 

Lister-Jones guest starred on Law and Order: Criminal Intent in 2005, the first year Noth returned to the series following the original run of Sex and the City, in an episode entitled Diamond Dogs.  

It was unclear which club she claims Noth was ‘sexually inappropriate’ at. According to Page Six, Noth co-owns The Cutting Room in Manhattan and was an investor in The Plumm, which closed in 2009.   

The sexual misconduct allegations against Noth emerged after the Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That, returned to HBO.

It does not appear that any of his Sex and the City costars have commented on the allegations.

In fact, Kristin Davis, who plays Charlotte, failed to mention them entirely when she appeared on the Late Late Show on Thursday. 

Host James Corden also decided to avoid the issue. When he asked her how she feels about the spin-off, to which she simply replied, ‘good.’ 

Lister-Jones’ apparent confession comes after The Hollywood Reporter published other allegations against Noth.

Both of the accusers in the report claimed that Noth had sex with them from behind in front of a mirror, with the first attack allegedly taking place in 2004, while the second reportedly occurred in 2015, three years after Noth married his wife, Tara Wilson, with whom he has two children. 

The two women both also allege that the attacks took place in one of Noth’s homes – the first in his Los Angeles apartment and the second in his New York City property – after the actor invited them over. 

Both women claim that the recent publicity surrounding the Sex and the City reboot – And Just Like That – ‘stirred painful memories’ of their encounters with Noth, who has featured heavily in the news in the past week as a result of the shock death of his character, Mr. Big, in the first episode of the new series.   

In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Noth, who has two sons with Wilson – Keats and Orion – admitted that he had ‘consensual encounters’ with the two women in the Hollywood Reporter story, both of which reportedly took place while he was in a relationship with his wife, but he strongly denied any accusations that he assaulted them. 

‘The accusations against me made by individuals I met years, even decades, ago are categorically false,’ the statement reads. 

‘These stories could’ve been from 30 years ago or 30 days ago — no always means no — that is a line I did not cross. 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.’ 

One of the accusers – using the pseudonym Zoe – said she first met Noth while working ‘in an entry-level position at a high-profile firm where Noth and other celebrities regularly had business’ in 2004. 

She claims that the actor – who was then at the height of his Sex and the City fame and, according to Zoe’s then-boss was seen as a ‘god’ by her and colleagues – began flirting with her in the office. 

At the time, Noth had been dating his now-wife Wilson for three years; the pair began their relationship in 2001 after first meeting at The Cutting Room, a New York jazz club owned by the actor, where Wilson, who was in her early 20s at the time, worked as a bartender. 

However, according to Zoe, the actor began leaving ‘flirty’ messages on her voicemail – which her boss alerted her to. 

Speaking to THR, the boss confirmed that she was aware of the messages, saying that it struck her as strange that the actor would be reaching out to her much younger employee, however she insists she was not in any way concerned by them. 

Zoe claims that she was raped by Noth in his West Hollywood apartment when she was just 22 and he was 49 – alleging that the actor invited her and a friend over to the pool at his building. Her unnamed friend confirmed that the two visited the pool and recalled that they sat in the jacuzzi with Noth, who then left a book with Zoe while he went to his apartment to take a call.  

She states that Noth then asked her to return the book to his home, telling her that he’d ‘love to know what she thought’. 

When Zoe went up to his home to give the book back, she says Noth ‘kissed her’ as soon as she walked through the door, however she says she was not initially concerned by the kiss – and in fact thought it would be a ‘funny story’ she could tell her friends about. 

However, she says Noth then pulled her towards him, moved her to his bed and removed her shorts and bikini bottoms, before raping her ‘from behind’ while they were ‘facing a mirror’.   

She also claimed that the actor did not use protection, that he ‘laughed at her’ when she asked him to get a condom – and says she was left bleeding after the assault, and had to go to the hospital to get stitches.  

‘It was very painful and I yelled out, “Stop!”‘ she told THR. ‘And he didn’t. I said, “Can you at least get a condom?” and he laughed at me.’  

After the alleged assault, she says she returned to a friend’s apartment, which was located in the same building as Noth’s home, and tried to wash the blood out of her shirt, before being urged by her friends to go to Cedars-Sinai, where she told hospital workers that she had been assaulted.  

‘I had stitches. Two police officers came. I wouldn’t say who it was,’ she says, claiming that she feared she would ‘not be believed’ and could ‘be fired’ if she publicly accused Noth of rape.  

Although Zoe has not previously accused Noth of assault or rape, she says did speak to several people about the attack – including her boss at the time, who told THR that Zoe phoned her after the alleged rape and told her Noth had attacked her. 

Speaking to the outlet, Zoe’s now-former boss said that her ex-employee sounded ‘upset’ and was ‘in shock’ during the phone call while relaying details of the ‘horrible’ incident, however she says Zoe insisted that she not tell anyone about it. 

‘I was 25 at the time. It was a lot. I didn’t know what to do,’ the unnamed woman said.

Noth’s second accuser, Lily, who is now working as a journalist, told a similar story to THR, alleging that the actor raped her in his home in Greenwich Village after they struck up a flirty relationship while she was working as a server at former New York nightclub No.8 in 2015, when she was 25. 

At the time, Noth – who was then 60 years old – had been married to his wife for three years and the couple had one child together, Orion, who was born in 2008. They have since had a second son, Keats, born in 2020. 

Describing herself as a long-time fan of the actor – whom she knew from his days starring in Law & Order, as well as his role on Sex and the City – Lily says she was ‘truly star-struck’ when he began ‘hitting on her’. 

‘He was hitting on me, for sure. I was flattered. I knew he was married, which is shameful of me to admit,’ she said.  

According to Lily, Noth asked for her number and later asked her out for dinner; they arranged to meet at Italian restaurant Il Cantinori – which featured in an episode of the original Sex and the City series.  

However, by the time the pair met at the eatery, the kitchen had closed, so Lily says they ‘had wine at the bar’ and discussed Noth’s lack of interest in appearing in a potential third Sex and the City movie.

Lily admits that she ‘had too much to drink’ but insists that she was ‘nowhere near blacking out’ when the actor invited her to his nearby home in Greenwich Village so that they could ‘sample his collection of whiskeys’ together.   

The woman – who describes herself as being ‘not super sexually active’ at the time – insists that she did not believe he would try and have sex with her, and that she simply though they would ‘drink whiskey and talk about his acting career’. 

Once inside his ‘amazing’ home, Lily says the pair listened to music and discussed the actor’s collection of art and fashion books, before he began trying to ‘make out with her’. 

Although she admitted that she ‘cautiously entertained’ him, she says that she was hesitant because he was ‘older and looked older’ than her. 

However, Lily says he became more forceful as time went on, claiming that he ‘kept trying and trying and trying’. 

‘I should have said no more firmly and left,’ she said, claiming that ‘the next thing she knew’ he had pulled down her pants and ‘was standing in front of her’, before ‘thrusting his penis into her mouth’.   

She says that she mentioned the fact that he had a wife and child, only for the actor to tell her that ‘marriage is a sham’ and ‘monogamy is not real’. Lily claims Noth then raped her from behind in a chair in front of a mirror. 

‘He was having sex with me from the back in a chair. We were in front of a mirror. I was kind of crying as it happened,’ she says. 

After the alleged assault took place, Lily says she went to the bathroom and put on her skirt, claiming that she ‘felt awful’ and ‘totally violated’.  

‘All of my dreams with this star I loved for years were gone,’ she added. 

While in an Uber home, Lily says she spoke to a friend – who was named Alex by THR – on the phone, whom she told that Noth had sex with her ‘pretty forcibly’. Despite her friend insisting that Lily should phone the police, she says she refused to.  

Speaking to the publication, Lily’s friend Alex confirmed her story and claimed that she listened to a voicemail Noth left on Lily’s phone after the incident.

According to Alex, Noth said in the message: ‘Hey, hope you didn’t take anything wrong last night. We had fun. Just want to make sure you didn’t take it the wrong way.’ 

However Lily offered a different recollection of the message, claiming that Noth told her: ‘I had a nice time and would really appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk to your girlfriends. If we could keep this between you and me, that would be great.’ 

Lily also handed over text messages sent between herself and Noth in March and April 2015 to The Hollywood Reporter, in which the pair seemingly discussed the incident, with the actor asking whether Lily ‘enjoyed their night last week’, adding that he ‘thought it was a lot of fun’ but that he ‘wasn’t quite sure how she felt’. 

According to the outlet, Lily responded that she ‘certainly enjoyed [Noth’s] company’ but that she ‘felt slightly used’, before suggesting that they continue their conversation on the phone.  

Noth went on to propose that the pair meet up for another date, sending her messages suggesting that they ‘have a drink’ and telling her that it ‘didn’t have to be at his place although he has the best whiskey’. 

In another message seen by THR, Noth reportedly asked Lily: ‘Oh mysterious one… where did you go.’

Lily says she agreed to see him for dinner on one occasion but ultimately canceled and the two did not meet again. 

Neither she nor Zoe have spoken publicly about their accusations until getting in touch with The Hollywood Reporter ‘months apart’ after being prompted by the frenzy of publicity surrounding the news about the new Sex and the City reboot, which was first announced in January of this year. 

The accusations against Noth come just one week after he hit headlines the world over while reprising his role as Mr. Big in the Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That – in which his character controversially dies of a heart attack after doing a workout on a Peloton bike. 

Mr Big’s shock death sparked outrage among viewers – and prompted furious backlash from Peloton, whose shares dropped 11 per cent in the wake of the debut episode’s premiere last Thursday.

Three days after the first two episodes aired on HBO Max, Peloton hit back at the show by airing a commercial featuring Noth in his role as Mr Big – alongside real-life instructor Jess King who starred as his trainer in And Just Like That.  

That commercial has now been deleted from Peloton’s social media accounts – as well as from the account of King, who featured in it alongside Noth. 

In a statement made to DailyMail.com, a spokesperson for Peloton addressed the allegations made against Noth, saying: ‘Every single sexual assault accusation must be taken seriously. 

‘We were unaware of these allegations when we featured Chris Noth in our response to HBO’s reboot. As we seek to learn more, we have stopped promoting this video and archived related social posts.’

HBO Max has yet to publicly comment on the allegations; DailyMail.com has reached out to representatives for Noth and the streaming site.