*Cue Ella Fitzgerald*
At last, the woman we’ve all been waiting for. After co-starring with Bill Cosby on both “The Cosby Show” and “Cosby” for over 12 years, Phylicia Rashad has finally broken her silence regarding the barrage of sexual assault allegations that The Cos is facing.
“Forget these women. 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,” said Rashad. Coming from “The Mother” of the African-American community (given to her at the 42nd NAACP Image Awards), whose impact came from her tell-it-like-it-is character Claire Huxtable, this is no surprise.
According to Roger Friedman of Showbizz 411:
Rashad dismisses claims from both Beverly Johnson and Janice Dickinson. “Oh, please,” she said when their names came up. She also is quick to defend Camille Cosby. “This is a tough woman, a smart woman,” she told me. “She’s no pushover.” There is no question, Rashad said, that Camille Cosby has not been complicit or looked the other way as her husband terrorized women for the last 50 years.
“Someone is determined to keep Bill Cosby off TV,” says Rashad. “And it’s worked. All his contracts have been cancelled.” She went on to elaborate, saying “This show represented America to the outside world. This was the American family. And now you’re seeing it being destroyed. Why?”
UPDATE 1.8
Having no apparent interest in discussing the sexual assault claims surrounding Mr.Cosby, Phylicia Rashad spoke to ABC News.
“We are really missing what is wrong here, which is, this is the United States of America. I know it’s changing, but it’s still the United States of America and there are tenets that we live by. There is the Constitution of the United States, which ensures innocence until proof of guilt and that has not happened.”
“But what has happened is declaration in the media of guilt, without proof. And a legacy is being destroyed because of it. It’s being obliterated.”
This all comes after Rashad was repeatedly mis-quoted as saying “Forget these women.”
“I am a woman. I would never say such a thing. I would never think such a thing. My message is, what happens to a nation in which people knowingly and willfully disavow the tenets that describe the nation? … This is not about the women. This is about something else. This is about the obliteration of a legacy.”
–Jamaal Fisher (@jamaalfisher)
