The Case Against Cosby: Sex-Assault Allegations Recast Star’s Legacy Read online

  Until the statement Camille Cosby issued last week, the AP news clip stood as her sole and cryptic testimony about the controversy consuming her family.

  As she listens with a rigid smile, she spins a ring on her left hand with the middle finger of her right hand. At times, she seems to be complicit in — or at least in agreement with — her husband’s effort to pressure the AP not to air his refusal to comment. She nods as he berates Brett Zongker, an AP arts reporter.

  “I think that if you want to consider yourself to be serious that it will not appear anywhere,” Bill Cosby says.

  Camille nods.

  “And we thought, by the way, that it would not be necessary to go over that question,” Bill says.

  Camille nods.

  “We thought that AP had the integrity,” Bill says as Camille nods again, “to not ask.”

  Camille nods one more time.

  The effort to intimidate the reporter got a boost from an off-camera figure whose identity has previously not been reported. After Cosby asks Zongker “what value” airing his refusal would have, a voice can be heard saying, “I don’t think it has any value either.” That voice belongs to the Smithsonian’s chief spokesperson, Linda St. Thomas — who holds great sway over reporters’ access to Smithsonian officials.

  St. Thomas said she does “not speak for Mr. Cosby” and that her comment about “no value” referred to “continuing an interview that consisted of repeating ‘no comment’ over and over. I was not making a judgment about what is and is not news.”

  On the wall behind the Cosbys during the interview, a poignant oil painting from 1894 titled “The Thankful Poor” hangs. It cost $287,000 in 1981.

  It was a Christmas gift — from Camille to Bill.

  Karen Heller, Peggy McGlone, Alice Crites and Magda Jean-Louis in Washington, and Geoff Edgers in Shelburne Falls, Mass., contributed to this report.

  Bill Cosby speaks up, says he expects black media to remain ‘neutral’

  By Peter Holley

  December 14, 2014

  After weeks of remaining dead quiet amid an unprecedented flood of sexual assault allegations, Bill Cosby briefly sprang to life in a fleeting exchange with the New York Post on Friday.

  Instead of commenting directly on allegations lodged against him by more than two dozen women over the past four decades, Cosby aimed his comments squarely at the media, specifically those in the black media.

  “Let me say this,” he told the paper. “I only expect the black media to uphold the standards of excellence in journalism and when you do that you have to go in with a neutral mind.”

  Cosby — who is being represented by lawyers Martin Singer and John B. Schmitt — added that he’s been advised by his legal team not to talk to the media, according to the paper. That didn’t stop the 77-year-old comedian, who reportedly sounded “upbeat” on the phone, from commenting on how his wife of about 51 years was dealing with the onslaught of negative attention.

  “Love and the strength of womanhood,” Cosby told the paper. “Let me say it again, love and the strength of womanhood. And, you could reverse it, the strength of womanhood and love.”

  This week, fashion icon Beverly Johnson added her name to the list of women accusing the comedian of assault. In a candid essay published in Vanity Fair, Johnson tells a familiar tale, alleging that Cosby lured her to his home with the promise that she would appear on his network show before drugging her and pulling her down the stairs by her hair.

  Johnson also recounted her alleged experience in an interview with ABC News on Friday.

  ‘Cosby Show’ actress Phylicia Rashad defends Bill Cosby

  By Soraya Nadia McDonald

  January 7, 2015

  Phylicia Rashad, the actress who played Bill Cosby’s wife, Claire Huxtable, on “The Cosby Show,” has finally broken her silence about the many allegations of rape and sexual abuse being levied against her former co-star. She maintained there was an orchestrated effort to take down Cosby.

  Rashad defended Cosby in an exclusive interview with Showbiz 411′s Roger Friedman at a luncheon for “Selma,” hosted by Paramount Pictures in New York.

  More than 24 women have come forward to say that Cosby attempted to drug or sexually assault them, including models Janice Dickinson andBeverly Johnson.

  “Forget these women,” Rashad told Friedman. “What you’re seeing is the destruction of a legacy. And I think it’s orchestrated. I don’t know why or who’s doing it, but it’s the legacy. And it’s a legacy that is so important to the culture.”

  When Friedman asked Rashad about Johnson and Dickinson specifically, he said Rashad responded, “Oh, please.”

  Johnson spoke to the Hollywood Reporter at the Palm Springs Film Festival.

  “It’s been a whirlwind month,” Johnson said. “I knew what to expect by coming here, and I was good with it — until I got here. My whole life changed in the last month. There has been an outpouring of women telling me their sexual abuse stories. I knew it was an important thing to do. Now I hear these stories wherever I go. I know, though, that speaking out was the right thing to do — it is always the right thing to do.”

  Cosby has denied the allegations of sexual abuse through his lawyers.

  “Someone is determined to keep Bill Cosby off TV, and it’s worked,” Rashad said. “All his contracts have been canceled.”

  The remarks from Rashad and Johnson arrived as two more women added their names to a defamation suit against Cosby. Therese Serignese andLinda Traitz joined a lawsuit filed by Cosby accuser Tamara Green, all claiming that Cosby defamed them by calling them liars when they accused him of sexual assault. They’re represented by Joseph Cammarata, the lawyer who represented Paula Jones in her suit against Bill Clinton.

  “This suit allows these women to finally have their day in court against Mr. Cosby in a forum where truth can be tried,” Cammarata said in a statement via USA Today. “These women claim to have been defamed after coming forward with their allegations and deserve the opportunity to have their stories heard.”

  At the end of December, Vibe noted remarks Cosby made about how his relationship with Rashad changed after she got pregnant during “The Cosby Show.” The magazine called them “strange” and “creepy.” The comments were from a November interview with News One published Dec. 29:

  Ahmad Rashad messed up that thing. When he married her I didn’t mind, but then she got pregnant and I didn’t want Cliff and Clair to have another kid. So we had to hide her body, which took me away from — took Cliff away from – touching her and playing with her because I didn’t want the audience to see that. So when that season was over, and she went on and had the child, it was gone. Not the love for her, but it was gone in terms of, now we have to get back to the touchy – I just lost it.

  Bill Cosby punch line: ‘You have to be careful drinking around me’

  By Soraya Nadia McDonald

  January 9, 2015

  More than two dozen women have accused Bill Cosby of drugging them. In many of their stories, Cosby’s accusers said he offered them a spiked drink, and they later woke to find they had been sexually assaulted by the comedian.

  On Thursday night at a stand-up show in London, Ontario, Cosby — wearing the “Hello Friend” sweatshirt that’s served as his uniform for much of his “Far From Finished” tour — made a joke about the allegations.

  Richard Warnica, a journalist for National Post, was there and tweeted through the show. This is what he witnessed:

  Despite the interruptions, Cosby closed to a standing ovation from the half-full arena, Warnica reported.

  The joke was especially jarring because Cosby isn’t known for trafficking in dark comedy. In fact, he was famous for policing younger comedians who he thought cursed too much, or were too raunchy. Though Cosby denies the tale, Kelefa Sanneh recalled one episode of policing, retold by Eddie Murphy in his stand-up act:

  During Cosby’s nineteen-eighties heyday, though, he seemed untouchab
le, and younger rivals, especially African-American ones, bristled at his dominance. In the 1987 concert movie “Raw,” Eddie Murphy told a story about Cosby calling him up and urging him to use less profanity in his act, for the sake of his young fans, including Cosby’s own son. Murphy recalled being so offended that he telephoned Richard Pryor, who offered some defiantly un-Cosby-like advice.

  Pryor’s advice is unpublishable in a family newspaper so you’ll have to use your imagination. But, who knows — maybe for his next show, Cosby will reboot his old Spanish fly joke.

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