Name: Barbara Bowman

Age: 48

Occupation: artist; ambassador with PAVE (Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment)

Year of alleged assaults by Bill Cosby: 1985 to 1987

Bowman was a 17-year-old model and an aspiring actress when her agent introduced her to Cosby in Denver in 1985. Cosby offered to mentor Bowman. The comedian flew her to celebrity events and performances across the country. He eventually moved her to New York City and then Long Island, while she took acting classes in the city. In New York, Cosby drugged and raped Bowman repeatedly; she didn’t realize for two years what was happening. “There were times when I was completely confused,” she says, “and there were other times that were very clear.” In 2005, Bowman joined Andrea Constand’s lawsuit as a supporting witness.

“It was a predatory grooming process that was very subtle and very manipulative. He was America’s favorite dad. I went into this thinking he was going to be my dad. He zoned right in on my insecurities. He convinced me that he was going to take care of me like a father, that he loved me like a daughter. To wake up half-dressed and raped by the man that said he was going to love me like a father? That’s pretty sick.

I was invited down to Atlantic City to see his show. It was a very confusing night where I was completely drugged and my luggage was missing. When I called the concierge to find out where my luggage was, Cosby went ballistic. He said, ‘What the hell are you doing, letting the whole hotel know I have a 19-year-old girl in my hotel suite?’

The next morning, I woke up undressed. I didn’t know what had happened. He called me on the phone and summoned me down to his room. He yelled at me that I had embarrassed him by being at the hotel, and that I needed to have discretion. Then he pounced on me. He threw me down on the bed and he put his forearm under my throat and started choking me. He straddled me, and he took his belt buckle off. The clanking of the belt buckle, I’ll never forget. It was jammed, and he was trying to unzip his pants. I was able to wiggle out. It was like a switch went off, like somebody flicked a switch and he suddenly came to reality and realized that he was really going to make a bigger scene than I had ever made. He did not rape me. That was it. He just decided I was too much work. He wrote me off, he kicked me out. I was done. When it was all over, the words that came out of Cosby’s mouth were: ‘I better never, ever see your face or hear your name again.’”

Photo: Amanda Demme