Phylicia Rashad — who played Claire Huxtable, the wife of Bill Cosby’s character on The Cosby Show — had remained quiet on the subject of the multiple rape allegations that have been leveled against Cosby over the past few decades and, more recently, the past few months. However, in a conversation with Roger Friedman over at Showbiz 411, Rashad has finally spoken up, and it’s to defend Cosby.
She told Friedman that she loves Bill Cosby, that she never saw anything while working with him to suggest any of the allegations of drugging and raping being alleged by over 30 women are true. She claims some sort of mass conspiracy.
“Forget these women,” Rashad said. “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 … Someone is determined to keep Bill Cosby off TV. And it’s worked. All his contracts have been cancelled.”
Rashad continued by specifically dismissing the allegations of Beverly Johnson and Janice Dickinson. “Oh please,” she said. She also spoke of Cosby’s real-life wife, Camille, who she says has absolutely NOT looked the other way while Cosby raped other women. “This is a tough woman, a smart woman. She’s no pushover.”
I don’t want to editorialize here out of respect for Phylicia Rashad, whom I adore. So I won’t. You can draw your own conclusions, but if there’s a conspiracy at play, it’s a massive one, and the motive behind it — “to destroy Cosby’s legacy” — seems a little specious. Why would anyone want to destroy a legacy that was otherwise so good for our culture?
Source: Showbiz 411
