Alleged Bill Cosby victim sues him for defamation

A lawsuit filed by Tamara Green — a woman who has long claimed Bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her back in the 1970s — is taking the Cosby scandal in somewhat of a different direction. Green’s lawsuit, filed in Massachusetts federal court, charges the actor and comedian with having defamed her — depriving Green of “her good name and reputation.”

The suit claims that Cosby used his lawyers to brand Green a liar since she first publicly denounced the scandal-ridden actor in 2005.

Now 66 and herself a retired attorney living in California, Green testified that Cosby drugged and then groped her in the 1970s — an account she gave when she was named as a witness in a suit against Cosby filed by another alleged victim, Andrea Constand. That lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed sum in 2006.

After Green supported Constand’s case, Cosby’s lawyer called the allegations “absolutely false” and said the rape “did not happen in any way, shape or form.”

“He called me a wrecking ball, but he never sued me for defamation,” Green told the New York Daily News on Friday. “My statements against him were actionable if they were false. He didn’t open that can of worms because my statements were true.”

During a 2005 interview on the “Today” show, Green told Matt Lauer that Cosby fed her pills that left her “unable to hold my head up” before he put her in bed.

Green said she fought off Cosby’s rape attempt by telling him, “You’re going to have to kill me.”