Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Annemarie Wiley’s husband, Marcellus Wiley, has been accused of raping a fellow student while attending college in the 1990s.
According to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, November 21, Marcellus, 48, allegedly sexually assaulted an unnamed accuser while both were attending Columbia University in the fall of 1994, “raping her multiple times in her dorm room.” Marcellus denied the allegations on the November 22 episode of his Brinx TV show, Never Shut Up.
The accuser claims that while a freshman at the college, she became “friendly acquaintances” with Marcellus, who was a sophomore at the time, due to “traveling in the same social circles.” The lawsuit also alleges that, unbeknownst to the accuser, “beginning in the fall of 1993” there had been “multiple complaints” about Marcellus from female students, all of whom claimed that he had “sexually assaulted and/or raped them.”
According to the lawsuit, the accuser told Marcellus that she was a virgin, to which he allegedly replied, “Ain’t nobody tryina have sex with no virgin!” However, upon arriving to her room, “the 250lb defendant then lifted plaintiff, forced her face-down down onto the mattress, and climbed on top of her” before allegedly pinning her “face-down on the bed” by her “forearm on the back of her neck.” The accuser alleges that she could “barely breathe” and “feared for her life.”
The accuser also names Columbia University in the suit, alleging 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.”
The lawsuit alleges that when the accuser reported the assault to university authorities, “administrators expressed fondness” for the future NFL player, who was a star running back for the school’s football team, and claimed the event was a “misunderstanding.”
The lawsuit further alleges that the school’s residential dean at the time told the accuser that Marcellus did not assault her because she “was not from America and therefore misinterpreted defendant’s conduct because ‘people from different cultures interpret things differently.’”
The suit goes on to claim that while Columbia administrators assured the accuser they would suspend Marcellus, he was instead put on “academic probation” for “poor grades” and forced to “complete the spring 1995 semester from home.” Law enforcement allegedly was not contacted and no mention of sexual assault was put on his record, the suit states.
The lawsuit was filed under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which took effect on Thanksgiving Day in 2022 and provided a one-year window for sexual assault plaintiffs to file civil claims, regardless of the statute of limitations. That window closes on Friday, November 24.
On Wednesday, Marcellus responded to the woman’s claims on his Brinx TV show, noting that he hasn’t heard from his lawyers. While he acknowledged that he and the accuser did “mess around” in her dorm room in 1994, he denied any “vaginal intercourse” occurred between them. He claimed that he had been invited into her room and stated that the woman asked him to “give her a call” the next morning. He claimed that the woman “only felt shame” about their encounter “when she knew there was no future with me.”
He continued, “You guys deserve the clarity, and I deserve to speak my truth, because my truth is what’s going to set me free.” He added that he “fit a stereotype” as a “big black man from Compton” and shared plans to countersue for defamation.
Following his time at Columbia, Marcellus went on to play as a defensive end on several teams in the NFL including the Buffalo Bills, San Diego Chargers, Dallas Cowboys and Jacksonville Jaguars. After his retirement in 2006, he joined ESPN as an analyst on SportsNation.
Marcellus is set to appear on season 13 of RHOBH, which premiered in September and features his wife Annemarie as a full-time cast member for the first time. The pair, who tied the knot in June 2014, share three children: Marcellus Jr., Aliya Jane and Alivia Marie.
Us Weekly has reached out to Bravo for comment.
