Thursday, April 26, 2018

Bill Cosby

[4/26/18] NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Bill Cosby was convicted Thursday of drugging and molesting a woman in the first big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era, completing the spectacular late-life downfall of a comedian who broke racial barriers in Hollywood on his way to TV superstardom as America’s Dad.

Cosby, 80, could end up spending his final years in prison after a jury concluded he sexually violated Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He claimed the encounter was consensual.

Cosby’s retrial took place against the backdrop of #MeToo, the movement against sexual misconduct that has taken down powerful men in rapid succession, among them Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Kevin Spacey and Sen. Al Franken.

[10/7/15] Keshia Knight Pulliam, best known for playing Bill Cosby’s youngest child Rudy in the iconic sitcom The Cosby Show – which was pulled from syndication on a number of networks – does not feel the controversy surrounding her famous TV father should cloud the show’s undeniable legacy.

“You can’t take back the impact that it’s had on generations of kids, and it’s continuing to have such a positive impact on them,” Pulliam, 36, told The Grio. “So I feel like the place that it has in people’s hearts is such a nostalgic part of childhood and beyond, it’s going to be difficult to take back those memories.” She then went on to say that the man the public perceives Cosby to be today is not the person she grew up knowing: someone who is philanthropic and charitable.

“All I can speak to is the man that I know and I love,” she said. “The fact that he’s been such an example, you can’t take away from the great that he has done. You know, the amount, the millions and millions of dollars that he has given back to colleges and education, and just what he did with The Cosby Show and how groundbreaking that was …

[7/9/15] On Monday after documents surfaced in which Bill Cosby admitted to getting quaaludes to give to girls he wanted to have sex with, the comedian lost an adamant supporter who had defended him against brewing sexual assault allegations over the last year. On Tuesday, he lost some more support: His bust in the Hollywood Studios Hall of Fame Plaza will be removed, Disney confirmed to a WESH TV reporter in Florida.

The Associated Press reported Monday that court documents from a 2005 hearing involving one of the more than two dozen women who have accused Cosby of sexual assault indicated that he admitted under oath at the time to getting the drugs for women he wanted to sleep with. Upon hearing the news, singer-actress Jill Scott, who had publicly defended Cosby over the past months, recanted her position and said she was “completely disgusted” with the news.

The 2005 case in which Cosby testified about quaaludes involved a former Temple University employee, who accused the now-77-year-old of assault. At the time, Cosby said that he gave the woman three half pills of Benadryl, and Cosby’s lawyers have repeatedly denied the accuracy of sexual assault allegations.

Cosby has also fallen from grace from Temple University in Philadelphia, his alma mater. His standup special with Netflix has been shelved indefinitely. NBC, which had planned a new sitcom with the comedian, also has backed away from him.

[7/16/15] Former Cosby cast member Joseph C. Phillips speaks out

[7/19/15] He was not above seducing a young model by showing interest in her father’s cancer. He promised other women his mentorship and career advice before pushing them for sex acts. And he tried to use financial sleight of hand to keep his wife from finding out about his serial philandering.

Bill Cosby admitted to all of this and more over four days of intense questioning 10 years ago at a Philadelphia hotel, where he defended himself in a deposition for a lawsuit filed by a young woman who accused him of drugging and molesting her.

Even as Mr. Cosby denied he was a sexual predator who assaulted many women, he presented himself in the deposition as an unapologetic, cavalier playboy, someone who used a combination of fame, apparent concern and powerful sedatives in a calculated pursuit of young women — a profile at odds with the popular image he so long enjoyed, that of father figure and public moralist.

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