A Lovefraud reader asked me to write about the Bill Cosby scandal. A total of 27 women have publicly come forward to tell their stories of being sexually assaulted by the famous comedian.
A complete list of the women who have accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault, on Slate.com.
As I read the accounts, I kept seeing virtually the same story, over and over.
Many of the women were young models and actresses who claim Cosby made a pretense of offering them career advice. One woman, however, was a 19-year-old waitress who said Cosby offered her a ride home and then assaulted her. Another woman was 19 when Cosby approached her in a gift shop at the Las Vegas Hilton, where he was performing, and invited her backstage. She says she was drugged, and woke up to find him having sex with her in the green room bathroom.
At this point the shocking realization hit me: This could have happened to me.
Atlantic City Magazine
From 1978 through 1982 I was editor of Atlantic City Magazine. It was my first job out of college.
The job sounds more prestigious than it was. Casino gambling had just become legal in New Jersey, and Atlantic City’s first casino opened a few weeks after I graduated from college. Atlantic City Magazine was a startup publication. I was not only the first editor; I was the first employee.
I had majored in magazine journalism in college, and founded a campus magazine. But I think the prime reason I got the job in Atlantic City was because I was in the right place at the right time.
Arranging the Cosby interview
Atlantic City Magazine frequently published interviews with the headline entertainers who performed at the casinos. Sometime around 1980, when I was 24 years old, Bill Cosby, who regularly appeared in Atlantic City, agreed to be interviewed.
I needed to finalize the time and place where our writer would meet the comedian. But Cosby wasn’t available — he was playing tennis with a casino executive. So in this era before cell phones, I drove over to the indoor tennis courts.
After making the arrangements with a casino PR person, I, along with a few others, watched Cosby play tennis.
As the game was coming to an end, Cosby announced that he wanted to go to the famous White House Sub Shop. But he didn’t have a car. So as the casino folks were trying to figure out how to get him to the sub shop, Cosby pointed at me and said, “She’ll take me.”
Driving Bill Cosby
I was astounded. Everybody looked at me, and I said I could take him.
So, when Cosby finished playing tennis, we got into my car. The car was something plain and white that Atlantic City Magazine rented for me — certainly not what I assume the TV star was accustomed to driving in.
I was star struck. During the 15 minutes that it took to drive from the tennis courts to the sub shop, I tried to engage Cosby in conversation. He didn’t say much. But he did spit out the window.
When we arrived at the sub shop, I stopped the car, let him out and drove away.
It never occurred to me to go in with him, be a groupie, order subs, or make sure he got back to the casino. That’s how naive I was.
Dodged a bullet
Later, realizing that I’d let an opportunity to make an important connection slip through my fingers, I berated myself for my stupidity.
But now, after reading the accounts of all the young women who claim that Cosby assaulted them, I can’t help but wonder if the same thing could have happened to me.
Maybe Cosby assumed that I’d go into the White House with him, and drive him back to the casino. Then, perhaps he would have invited me backstage. I know I would not have questioned his intentions. I didn’t understand then that rich, famous, powerful men took advantage of young women.
Had Bill Cosby done the same thing to me that he allegedly did to all those other young women, I know one thing. I would have been severely traumatized.
So perhaps I was lucky that I drove away.
More info:
Everything you need to know about the Bill Cosby scandal, on Time.com
Bill Cosby’s legacy, recast: Accusers speak in detail about sexual assault allegations, on WashingtonPost.com.
I was chewed up and spit out in a ‘classic’ manner and at record speed
BERNARD HAS MORE EVIDENCE TO GIVE POLICE IF REQUESTED, Allred said. Gloria, you go girl!
“An actress who worked with Bill Cosby says the comedian drugged and raped her, and recently spent hours interviewing and GIVING EVIDENCE to police in Atlantic City. Attorney Gloria Allred said her client, Lili Bernard, who has publicly stated she was drugged and raped by Cosby, met with Atlantic City Police last week for several hours, according to the press of atlantic city.com.
This is absolutely huge! Momentous!! Without evidence there can be no charges, no arrest, and no trial. Jan7”.it truly would be the “Trial of the Century”! Meanwhile we’re still awaiting the findings of LAPD on pending charges filed against him in LA back in January. This is just the tip of the iceberg allowing more traumatized women to come forward and civil lawsuits to follow against evil psychopath Cosby.
Hopefully the (new per the net) Prosecutor for Atlantic City has the strength to go forward, it’s going to be a media circus that they might want to avoid all together because lack of “evidence” & the cost of a trial. We all know Cosby has a pathological behavior pattern & meets the traits of a sociopath/psychopath but will the Prosecutor’s office see this?
For the victims I sure hope so.
Way to go Gloria!! & the victims!!
Cosby is making yet another desperate attempt to distract from his exposed evilness. Now he’s planning to march tomorrow as an advocate for education in rural Alabama, speaking to students in several cities before the march. Oh, really? They want a serial rapist/psychopath as an outspoken advocate, a face for education in poor, rural America? The Black Belt Community Foundation reached out to (Dr.?) Cosby as a prominent and visible supporter of their education cause. Of all the deserving and outstanding minority celebrities to represent them they instead choose this hypocrite! Cosby NEVER graduated from college and NEVER earned his touted degrees:
• He dropped out of high school having flunked 10th grade three times.
• Joined the navy and finally got his GED (most likely financed by the navy).
• Enrolled at Temple University, dropped out and never graduated.
• Temple Univ bestowed an “honorary” (ie fake) Bachelor’s Degree based on his “life experiences”.
• He was never spent time at UMass, where he was again bestowed an “honorary” Masters degree.
• Was awarded a Doctorate Degree in Education from UMass.
According to Sam Simon, one of “The Simpsons” co-creator who worked with Cosby on “Fat Albert” claims Cosby had two of his paid writers to write his doctoral thesis titled “An Integration of the Visual Media Via Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (1972) into the Elementary School Curriculum as a Teaching Aid and Vehicle to Achieve Increased Learning.” That sounds too intelligent to come out of his dirty mouth! For a better timeline of Cosby’s “education” go to: http://www.who2.com/blog/2010/12/from-dropout-to-doctorate-a-bill-cosby-educational-timeline
Just goes to show if your famous, wealthy, powerful and contribute millions of dollars to a college or university, you too can buy your degrees and education. I’m all for social reform but what benefit, charity, foundation etc., in their public relations right mind, would want this evil psychopath as a spokesperson for their cause? True to form he continues to con and dupe the public.
so sick I hope all of the marchers boo him all the way home. These “Honoree Doctorate degrees” are a joke and so disrespectful for all of the students that earn their way through their program with hard work & paying their way or gaining scholarships on merit.
Kanye West receiver another fake Honoree Doctorate degree just the other day…he too fits the bill for a sociopath narcissist. What a joke all of these colleges they have know idea they are being conned by all of these sociopaths!!
Don’t these colleges investigate the people they’re bestowing these fake degrees to? Did Kanye West contribute $$$ to his chosen college as a tax writeoff and PR stunt?
Care2 Protests Bill Cosby’s Atlanta Performance. http://www.care2.com/causes/care2-protests-bill-cosbys-atlanta-performance.html
Bill Cosby “speaks out”…but really does only a sociopath dance of with his manipulative well thought out words. He only cares about his career!!
Here is the article on the net:
“Bill Cosby’s accusers are not afraid to speak out. By the dozens, women have come forward to allege that Cosby sexually assaulted them. But while their words have filled op-eds and interviews and press conferences, Cosby, for the most part, has refused to comment.
Yet Cosby came face-to-face with the allegations again in a new interview with Good Morning America’s Linsey Davis, a conversation which was ostensibly about Cosby’s work with the Black Belt Community Foundation but, in the clips released to the public thus far, focus almost entirely on Cosby’s reputation as a serial rapist.
During the interview, Davis asked Cosby, “Are you prepared for backlash? If a young person comes up to you and says, ’My mom says you’ve done some bad things,’ how will you answer them? If they are pressing you, ’Are you guilty? Did you do it? Are the allegations true?’”
Cosby’s reply:
I am prepared to tell this young person the truth about life. I’m not sure that they will come like that. I think many of them say, well, you’re a hypocrite. You say one thing, you say the other. My point is, okay, listen to me carefully. I’m telling you where the road is out. I’m telling you where, as you’re driving, you’re going to go into water and it looks like it might only be three inches deep, but you and your car are going to go down. Now, you want to go here, or you want to be concerned about who is giving you the message?
There was this pause after the word “truth.” You could be forgiven for getting hopeful in that moment: “I am prepared to tell this young person the truth.” But, no. And it seems rather optimistic of Cosby to assume that this hypothetical young person would say “You’re a hypocrite” and not “You’re a serial rapist.”
Davis then asked, “Are you concerned at all that, given the allegations, that may overshadow your message?”
“I’ve been in this business 52 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Cosby said. “And reality is the situation. And I can’t speak.”
Forty women have publicly condemned Cosby for sexually assaulting them. The accusations span decades. You’ve never seen anything like this, Cosby? What a coincidence, neither has anyone else.
It is kind of amazing that, after all this time, Cosby still responds to questions about these allegations as if he is surprised and scandalized by their existence. Obviously, he knows this barrage of rape accusations is newsworthy and that any reasonable reporter will ask what, if anything, he wants to say in response. How does he not just have a boilerplate, go-to reply? He always appears to be scrambling for something vague and not-incriminating to say. His failure to have a clear dismissal-and-denial strategy calls to mind his sloppy written response to the revived allegations last fall: his ever-changing legal team, his contradictory statements.
Davis asked Felecia Lucky, president of the Black Belt Community Foundation, if the rape allegations “were enough to make you think twice about inviting Mr. Cosby?” Cosby will speak to hundreds of high school students in Demopolis and Selma and participate in the “March for Education” across the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge. Lucky acknowledged that she had second thoughts but decided “at the end of the day, what is most important was, how do we make sure the world knows the Black Belt children matter.”
Could Cosby’s participation, even on behalf of a good cause, shed a positive light on anything at the moment? In just six months, his reputation has fallen from mostly-beloved public figure to likely predator. His name, in association with the word “mentor,” scans as so absurd to a modern audience it is, literally, a joke.
And there is something especially disconcerting about the notion of Cosby spending a lot of intimate time with young people, considering the fact that Judy Huth, one of Cosby’s alleged victims, was 15 years old at the time of her assault. (A representative from the Black Belt Foundation, reached this morning by phone, said no one would be available to comment on this story.)
When Davis asked Cosby what he wants his legacy to be, Cosby shook his head and said, “I have a ton of ideas to put on television about people and their love for each other.”
This, again, demonstrates a willful obliviousness to reality: Cosby might want to be on television, but television has made it quite clear that it wants nothing to do with Cosby. TV Land yanked all the Cosby Show reruns from the air last November; NBC killed a Cosby project that was still in its early stages; Netflix shelved comedy special Bill Cosby 77, which was slated to premiere on Nov. 27 of last year, indefinitely. Multiple theaters have canceled his scheduled appearances.
Off-screen, Cosby resigned, presumably under pressure, from the Temple University Board of Trustees, and was stripped of his honorary chief petty officer designation by the Navy.
But Cosby has made a point of continuing to perform wherever and whenever he is able to do so, keeping up his tour with the trolling title of “Far From Finished.” When over 14,000 people signed a petition protesting Cosby’s April 27 show at the Cobb Center in Atlanta, Cosby posted a 19-second video to assure fans that “I’m going to perform because I love it when you laugh.”
His determination to stay on stage might not be enough to overcome the latest accusation, which could result in Cosby facing criminal charges. Actress Lili Bernard said that Cosby raped her in New Jersey, where there is no statute of limitations on sexual assault. Bernard came forward at a press conference hosted by Gloria Allred two weeks ago, the day after she reported her assault to the Atlantic City Police Department.
GMA is hyping the interview by claiming Cosby is responding to allegations for “the very first time,” even though Cosby has actually addressed them before. Last December, he told a Page Six reporter that he “only expect[s] the black media to uphold the standards of excellence in journalism.” During an interview with the Associated Press on Nov. 6, Cosby issued a brief “no comment” to questions about his alleged assaults and then tried to bully the AP reporter into not showing the interview footage: “If you want to consider yourself to be serious, it will not appear anywhere.”
This is about as close as Cosby gets to “responding” to the dozens of allegations against him: in this elliptical, I’m-the-real-victim-here sort of way. So his latest comments aren’t too surprising, even though they are disappointing and frustrating and, no matter how closely you read them, incomprehensible.”
Every time Cosby comes forward to speak and be interviewed he has to know he’ll be asked about the 45 women he sexually assaulted, but he ultimately put both feet in his mouth this time. During his GMA interview today (described as “Bill Cosby Breaks His Silence About Sexual Assault Allegations) he sounded incoherent, convoluted and unintelligible (word salad comes to mind). I don’t know what the purpose of this interview was ” his sexual assaults (I don’t even use “alleged”) or Black Belt Community Foundation support? Felicia Lucky, president of the foundation, stood right behind him and as far as I could tell he never mentioned the foundation.
Asked about his legacy he closes with “I have a ton of ideas to put on television about people and their love for each other.” Again, another not so subtle attempt to revive and appeal to future TV producers featuring Cosby. Bill, nobody cares about your ideas and networks want nothing more to do with you. You are DONE!
When he speaks and shows his face in public he just perpetuates his damaged and unrecoverable “image”. Unbelievable grandiosity, arrogance and ego! Bill, crawl back to your mansion and shut up until you’re arrested!
I hope women and protesters heckle him as he addresses the high school graduates today and line his march route with signs and protests!
Knownow, the first thing I too thought of while reading his quotes was word salad. It’s pretty clear he is a crazy sociopath. I really do hope his wife escapes this crazy world he has created for the both of them.
Classic sociopath he just keeps surrounding himself with people that will put him on a pedestal and bow/praise him, so much ego building he needs.
If this was an everyday guy there would be an up roar for the community to put him behind bars.
Jan7”.. Cosby charmed and conned (love bombed) Camille at the young age of 19, he was seven years older, and shortly thereafter married him. She subsequently dropped out of college. Not long after she married him he was womanizing and sexually assaulting women and continued to do so for the next fifty years. He was probably doing his evil sexual assaults before he even met her. Makes you wonder what he did (ie, more love bombing, lies, brainwashing, blame shifting etc) for her to stick around. Once they started having children she couldn’t just leave him and when the money really started rolling in was just another seductive reason for her not to leave.
Camille’s education timeline is questionable as well, but at least she actually attended college and earned her degrees, though some appear to be honorary (fake). So here we have a supposed educated woman married to an uneducated man with fake degrees. Makes you wonder how they communicate and what they talk about at the dinner table over his word salad
Bill Cosby breaks silence about allegations in interview on ABC News.
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/exclusive-bill-cosby-breaks-silence-sexual-assault-allegations/story?id=31064187
Story suggested by a Lovefraud reader – who described Cosby’s responses as “word salad.”
If an entire town can be wooed into accepting a predator, it’s little wonder that individuals can be fooled as well. People who self-blame for having been tricked should see this interview and take heart!
It wasn’t your ignorance, your stupidity or vulnerability…… it was the seductive manipulation of a con artist!
Joyce
Now on CNN: Bill Cosby sued for defamation by Janice Dickinson
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/20/us/bill-cosby-sued-by-dickinson/
Good for Janice!! This is how he will ultimately fall…Cosby’s own lawyer will be the reason!! His lawyer seems like a sociopath too.
Glad Ms Bloom is handling this case along with her mother.
Cosby Needs to be held accountable for his horrific acts of evil. And if the only way to hold him accountable after all these years is to leave him penniless then so be it.
The truth always prevails.
Thanks for posting Donna.
I hope that Ms Bloom & Ms Allred also deposes Cosby’s wife because I feel that he is drugging her also to keep her from leaving him and also for exposing the abuse she has endured at the hands of him. Cosby’s wife could tell a lot in court to help all of these victims finally get their justice.