Bill Cosby
Criticism of the media after Shitstorm against TV wife
Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad on “The Bill Cosby Show”
© imago images / Everett Collection
Phylicia Rashad was happy about the release of her TV husband, but rowed back after criticism. Now Bill Cosby is attacking the media.
New development in the case of Bill Cosby (83): The actor and comedian, who was released early from prison on June 30, 2021, has now attacked Howard University. This emerges from a statement that is available to the US magazine “Deadline”, among others. The university has restricted the freedom of expression of Phylicia Rashad (73), according to Cosby.
The actress, who for years played the eponymous star’s wife on the “Bill Cosby Show” and is now dean of Howard University, had previously cheered Cosby’s release in a tweet. “FINALLY !!!! A terrible bug will be fixed. A failure of the judiciary will be corrected,” she wrote on Twitter.
Howard University distanced itself from Rashad
After public criticism of her post rose, Rashad rowed back. She deleted the controversial tweet and published a statement expressing her condolences to victims of sexual abuse: I support victims of sexual assault who go public with it 100 percent. My post was in no way designed to be insensitive to their truth. “
Despite this limitation, Howard University distanced itself in a statement from her dean. A tweet on the university’s official website said: “Sexual assault survivors will always be our priority. While Dean Rashad agrees in her follow-up tweet that the victims must be listened to and believed, her original tweet lacked sensitivity towards survivors of sexual violence “.
To blame the media for the Capitol storm?
On July 4, 2021, Independence Day in the United States, Bill Cosby accused the university of violating the principle of freedom of expression. Through his spokesman Andrew Wyatt, he said, “Howard University, you must support the freedom of expression (of Ms. Rashad) that is, or should be, taught in its prestigious law school.”
In the same statement, Cosby, who is allegedly planning a new tour, accused the American media of having stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. “And the same rebels are now trying to destroy the constitution of this United States of America on this Independence Day. It is not a formality – it is a violation of our rights and we, the people, stand by Ms. Phylicia Rashad’s side.”
Bill Cosby was sentenced to three to ten years in prison on September 25, 2018 for three sexual abuse charges. On June 30, 2021, the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court overturned the conviction after seeing Cosby’s constitutional rights violated. In 2005, the then public prosecutor had promised the entertainer not to prosecute him if he testified in a civil trial for compensation in favor of one of his victims. His successor had nevertheless initiated criminal proceedings.