File Photo: Actor Bill Cosby attends the American Comedy Awards in New York (Reuters Photo)
TV legend Bill Cosby has denounced the sexual assault allegations against him as "innuendo," but the claims keep coming, amid talk of the fall of an icon.
"He's trying to go on with the show, but the damage may be irrevocable," said celebrity bible People magazine, in a cover story Monday on the 77-year-old long known as the nation's favorite dad.
"It is not like he will never work again. But this has seriously compromised his future in entertainment," Robert Thompson, a professor of pop culture at Syracuse University in New York state, told AFP.
People noted that Cosby survived a civil lawsuit brought by 13 women in 2005, but renewed claims by those alleged victims have been joined by fresh allegations from other women in the last few weeks.
"The accusations keep coming, one disturbingly similar allegation after another," said the magazine under the strapline "The Fall of Bill Cosby."
There does indeed appear to be a pattern to the claims: since the first accuser Andrea Constand in 2004, they have involved the alleged victim being drugged and then forced into having sex with Cosby.
Although he has not been charged with any crime, in all some 20 women have now made on-the-record claims of sexual assault dating back to the 1960s, including when Cosby was at the height of his fame.
While most of the accusers have been women, they were joined Monday by a male former TV worker who claimed he arranged payments for eight women when Cosby was working on landmark TV series "The Cosby Show."
Frank Scotti, 90, was a facilities manager for the New York studio where the show was filmed, and said he organized payments of up to $2,000 at a time for the women on the show, which ran from 1984-1992.
'Everybody fooled' by Cosby"He had everybody fooled," Scotti told the New York Daily News, adding that Cosby got him to put his own name on the money orders. "Nobody suspected... He was covering himself by having my name on it.
"It was a coverup. I realized it later," Scotti added.
Cosby's lawyer, well-known Hollywood attorney Marty Singer, dismissed the new claim.
"What evidence does he have of Mr Cosby's involvement?" he asked in an interview with the paper.
"How would Scotti know if a woman was a model or a secretary? It appears that his story is pure speculation so that he can get his 15 minutes of fame."
Cosby himself, who has declined for weeks to comment on the allegations, broke his silence over the weekend.
"I know people are tired of me not saying anything, but a guy doesn't have to answer to innuendos," Cosby told Florida Today. "People should fact check. People shouldn't have to go through that and shouldn't answer to innuendos."
Cosby was greeted with a standing ovation at a show Friday in Florida, local media reported.
But his next show in Las Vegas next weekend has been called off. The Arizona Republic reported that a show at the Desert Diamond Casino in Tucson scheduled for February 15 had been canceled, as had one in New Jersey.
On Wednesday, US network NBC pulled the plug on a new Cosby sitcom, a day after streaming video service Netflix canceled a planned special, piling pressure on the veteran comic.
The storm engulfing Cosby erupted last month, when comedian Hannibal Buress branded him a "rapist" during a stand-up show in Philadelphia -- a clip that went viral.
On Friday, Cosby's lawyer said the abuse claims have "escalated far past the point of absurdity," adding: "It is long past time for this media vilification of Mr Cosby to stop."
Pop professor Thompson added: "Cosby's career has already been affected by those allegations, but this time the impact is very serious."