“Extra” co-host A.J. Calloway became the subject of another set of sexual assault accusations on Friday when the Daily Beast published the accounts of two anonymous women who said the TV personality forced himself on them in separate incidents.
Neither woman is named in the report, though the first of the two accusers filed an “aggravated sexual assault” complaint with the West Orange Police Department in New Jersey last month, according to the Daily Beast. No further details were provided regarding the reported assault.
The other woman, identified in the story under the pseudonym Talia, said she first came into contact with Calloway in 2011 and was sexually assaulted by the “Extra” co-host at his house after giving in to his repeated advances.
“I just remember trying to push him off of me, and this went on for 40 minutes straight,” she told the Daily Beast, saying that she was insistent throughout that she would not have sex with him. “Me attempting to push him off of me and fighting to keep him from taking my clothes off. Eventually he got tired, and I think it’s because he was so intoxicated–it was wearing him out.”
The woman said Calloway then began to masturbate and “kept trying to put my hand on his penis and eventually he ejaculated on my hands.”
In a statement to the Daily Beast, Calloway’s lawyer said, “We cannot comment on vague secondhand allegations beyond that Mr. Calloway firmly denies any claim that he assaulted someone.”
“We take allegations made against our employees seriously and investigate appropriately. To date, we have not received a complaint about A.J. Calloway and his work on ‘Extra,’” a spokesperson for the show said in a statement to TheWrap.
Calloway was previously accused of sexual assault by activist Sil Lai Abrams in a report published by The Hollywood Reporter last June. Recounting a story first published in her 2007 memoir, which identified her abuser only as a “B-list celebrity,” Abrams said Calloway forced her to touch his penis and attempted to force himself on her when they met in 2006.
Abrams reported the incident to the police, but the case was dismissed on procedural grounds. “The Assistant District Attorney handling my case asked for one too many continuances and as a result violated [Calloway’s] right to a fair and speedy trial,” she told the Daily Beast.
At the time, Calloway called the allegations “false” and said he “fully cooperated” with the investigation.
“I was disappointed to read the false allegations about me in The Hollywood Reporter. As I have maintained from the beginning, these allegations are not true,” he said in a statement.