Autumn Jackson
American extortionist
Autumn Jaquel Jackson (born September 20, 1974), also known as Autumn Williams, is an American interior designer. She first came to media attention in 1997 for her extortion attempt against comedian Bill Cosby. Jackson had threatened to go to the tabloids with her claim she was Cosby's illegitimate child unless Cosby paid her $40 million USD. Jackson's disputed paternity claim against Cosby resurfaced in the media in 2014, as a result of sexual assault allegations against Cosby.
Early life and paternity
Autumn Jaquel Jackson was born to Shawn Thompson Upshaw on September 20, 1974. The paternity has been disputed. Jackson and her mother have claimed that comedian Bill Cosby is Jackson's father while Cosby has denied the claim. In 1997, Cosby admitted to having an extra-marital affair with Upshaw in the 1970s. Upshaw also disclosed the affair with Cosby to the media in 1997, per interviews by the tabloid Daily Mail and the National Enquirer.
In 2005, following sexual assault allegations against Cosby from an athletics director at Temple University, Jackson's mother alleged that she became pregnant with Jackson after Cosby allegedly drugged and raped her. This allegation received renewed attention in 2014, when other women claiming to have been raped by Cosby came forward.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Autumn Jackson” is american extortionist. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Autumn, Jackson and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18704876. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1974, 1997, 2014 and 2005.
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This entry incorporates text from “Autumn Jackson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.