Chris Noth: Fifth woman accuses Sex and the City actor of misconduct

A fifth woman has accused Sex and the City actor Chris Noth of sexual abuse and threatening to ruin her career if she spoke out about the alleged attack.

US singer Lisa Gentile says the actor, now 67, groped her at her New York apartment after giving her a lift home from a restaurant almost 20 years ago.

The accusation comes after four other women alleged that Mr Noth had sexually assaulted them years ago.

Mr Noth rejected earlier accusations as "categorically false".

On Thursday, Ms Gentile, 54, told a virtual press conference she had first met the actor at a New York City restaurant in 1998.

One night in 2002, she said, Mr Noth accompanied her to her apartment and she "quickly became uncomfortable".

"He was slobbering all over me," she alleged. "I was trying to get him to stop."

She accused Mr Noth of touching her inappropriately and forcing her to place her hands on him.

"He became more aggressive and put both hands on my breasts and began squeezing them very hard over my shirt," Ms Gentile said. "I kept pushing his hands down while he was pushing mine up."

The singer said she had managed to gain control and push him away, telling him: "No, I don't want this."

Ms Gentile said she had not come forward with the allegation before now because she had been "afraid... of Noth's power and his threats to ruin my career".

Her lawyer, Gloria Allred, said her client would not be able to file a legal complaint because of the amount of time that had passed since the alleged incident.

Ms Allred said her client wanted the law - under which some historic cases expire after time - to change, and "that is why she is speaking out today".

Last week, two women accused Mr Noth of sexual assault, telling The Hollywood Reporter, external that seeing him on the new Sex and the City show had prompted them to come forward. Pseudonyms were used in the report to protect their privacy.

"Zoe", now 40, says she was 22 when the actor allegedly raped her at an apartment in West Hollywood in 2004.

"Lily", now 31, says she was raped in his Greenwich Village apartment in New York City in 2015 when she was 25 and he was 60.

On Thursday, an op-ed by a former stand-in for Sex in the City, Heather Kristin, was republished in the Independent, external.

Ms Kristin wrote of being touched inappropriately by the actor and witnessing crass misogynistic comments on the set of the programme.

Mr Noth, who played the character of Mr Big in the hugely popular Sex and the City series - the main love interest for Sarah Jessica Parker's protagonist - has said the encounters with both women were consensual.

"The accusations against me made by individuals I met years, even decades, ago are categorically false," he said in a statement.

"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," he added.

A third woman later told The Daily Beast that Mr Noth had assaulted her in New York City in 2010, when she was 18. A spokesman for the actor said the story was "a complete fabrication".

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) earlier said that the allegations had not led to an investigation because no official report had been made to police.

Mr Noth's attorney, Andrew Brettler, told the BBC his client had no further comment at this time.