Riccardo Tisci is now facing a sexual assault lawsuit.
According to a legal complaint filed Tuesday in the New York Supreme Court, plaintiff Patrick Cooper alleges the Italian-born designer approached him at an East Harlem bar in June 2024 and slipped a drug into his drink without his knowledge. The accuser claims Tisci then took him back to his SoHo home, where the alleged sexual assault took place.
“Upon information and belief, [Tisci] intended to make [Cooper] so disoriented as to no longer know where he was, what he was doing, or what other people, particularly Defendant, was doing to him,” the 11-page complaint read. “[Cooper was] unable to reject, fight, stop, or defend himself [from Defendant’s] predatory, sexual and unlawful assault.”
Cooper claimed he woke up the next morning naked next to an unclothed Tisci. The plaintiff told the Independent he left Tisci’s home and immediately went to a hospital for a rape-kit exam and then reported the alleged assault to the police.
“I remember sipping the drink, and I don’t remember anything else,” he told the outlet. “To this day, I still don’t remember anything. Nothing.”
A spokesperson for Tisci, the former head of Burberry and Givenchy, vehemently denied the allegations in a statement to WWD.
“These allegations are categorically untrue," he told the outlet. "Riccardo looks forward to clearing his name of these false and malicious allegations. He will obtain vindication through due process.”
Cooper is seeking compensatory and punitive damages "in a sum exceeding the jurisdictional limits of all lower courts which would otherwise have jurisdiction of this matter, together with attorney's fees, costs and any and all further relief that the court deems just and proper."
A spokesperson for the New York Police Department declined to confirm the case or an investigation but stated: “The NYPD takes sexual assault and rape cases extremely seriously, and urges anyone who has been a victim to file a police report so we can perform a comprehensive investigation, and offer support and services to survivors.”