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The husband of new castmate Annemarie Wiley on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is being accused of raping a fellow student while attending college in the 1990s.
Marcellus Wiley, a 48-year-old former NFL star, will reportedly be featured in the current season.
Per a lawsuit via Us Weekly, Marcellus was accused of raping a fellow student while he was studying at Columbia University.
The plaintiff, who remains unnamed, claimed in autumn of 1994 that Marcellus “rap[ed] her multiple times in her dorm room.” The athlete denied the accusations on Wednesday’s episode of his Never Shut Up show.
The plaintiff said she and Marcellus became “friendly acquaintances” when she was a freshman and he was a sophomore because they were “traveling in the same social circles.” According to the suit, “multiple complaints” about Marcellus were allegedly made by female students “beginning in the fall of 1993,” though the plaintiff wasn’t aware at the time, and the other women had also claimed Marcellus “sexually assaulted and/or raped them.”
The plaintiff said she informed the athlete she was a virgin before he purportedly responded, “Ain’t nobody tryina have sex with no virgin!” On entering her room, according to the allegations, “the 250lb defendant then lifted plaintiff, forced her face-down down onto the mattress, and climbed on top of her” before he pinned her “face-down on the bed [by her] forearm on the back of her neck.” The woman said she “feared for her life” and could “barely breathe.”
Columbia University was also named in the suit, and the plaintiff alleged its “callous, negligent, reckless and deceptive response to, and handling of, plaintiff’s and other students’ allegations was an unconscionable revictimization of plaintiff, which caused psychological injuries, financial and academic damages.”
Per the suit’s allegations, when the student reported this assault to Columbia’s authorities, the “administrators expressed fondness” for the athlete, who at the time was the school’s running back, and allegedly called the event a “misunderstanding.”
The suit also claimed Columbia’s residential dean told the plaintiff that Marcellus didn’t assault her because the woman “was not from America and therefore misinterpreted defendant’s conduct because ‘people from different cultures interpret things differently.’”
According to the allegations, the school’s administrators told the plaintiff that Marcellus would be suspended, though he was actually placed on “academic probation” for “poor grades,” and he had to “complete the spring 1995 semester from home.” The lawsuit alleged the sexual assault was never put on the athlete’s record, and no one contacted law enforcement.
The unnamed person filed the suit under the state of New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which provided a one-year window – regardless of statutes of limitations – to sexual assault plaintiffs for filing civil claims. The window started on Thanksgiving of 2022 and closes on November 24 of this year.
On his Brinx TV show, Marcellus reacted to the allegations. Though he claimed he and the unnamed person “mess[ed] around” in the dorm that year, he denied that any “vaginal intercourse” took place. He said he was invited into her dorm, and the woman asked the athlete to “give her a call” the following morning. According to Marcellus, the plaintiff “only felt ashamed” over the encounter “when she knew there was no future with me.”
He added, “You guys deserve the clarity, and I deserve to speak my truth, because my truth is what’s going to set me free.” The star said he “fit a stereotype” being a “big black man from Compton,” and he expressed his intentions to countersue over defamation.
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