Phylicia Rashad is breaking her silence on the Bill Cosby sexual assault allegations in order to defend Cosby against what she believes is an “orchestrated” smear campaign “to keep Bill Cosby off TV.”
As updates of the Bill Cosby scandal have continued to sweep media headlines, many people have been waiting to see what Cosby’s iconic TV wife had to say about the allegations.
Now she is speaking up and encouraging people to simply “forget these women.”
“Forget these women,” Rashad said during an interview with Showbizz 411. “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.”
Rashad said that the scandal is just the result of someone’s desire to keep the iconic Black TV father off television for good.
“Someone is determined to keep Bill Cosby off TV, and it’s worked,” she added. “All his contracts have been canceled.”
When it comes to the high-profile accusers, models Beverly Johnson and Janice Dickinson, Rashad was unimpressed with their accounts of how Cosby allegedly assaulted them.
She also believes that there is no way Cosby’s wife would have sat back and accepted the fact that her husband was forcing himself on so many women.
“This is a tough woman, a smart woman,” she said of Cosby’s wife. “She’s no pushover.”
Rashad’s defense of Cosby comes at a rather crucial time for the iconic comedian.
The allegations and the amount of accusers have continued to pile up since the controversy first sparked and Cosby has remained relatively quiet.
Outside of a few angry letters to the press, Cosby hasn’t made many public statements about the allegations.
While his silence has sparked backlash by some, Rashad says there is no point in Cosby speaking out because the media has already deemed him as a villain.
“If he spoke now, what do you think the media would do with it,” she said.
The latest Cosby accusers to step forward were two Florida women who say the Cosby Show star sexually assaulted them decades ago.
Theresa Serignese and Linda Traitz joined the lawsuit filed by Joseph Cammarata on the behalf of Tamara Green.
Serignese is now 57 years old and is a nurse. At the age of 19, however, she claims she had dreams to become a model.
After a show in Vegas, she claims Cosby drugged her and raped her back in 1976.
As for Traitz, who is now 63, she said she was also 19 when Cosby allegedly sexually assaulted her on a Florida beach.
She first wrote about the allegations on Facebook back in November but the page has disappeared since then.
The number of Cosby accusers has pushed beyond the two dozen mark, but Cosby’s legal team insists that there is no merit to any of the women’s claims.
