Bill Cosby speaks during a Veterans Day ceremony this year in Philadelphia. Matt Rourke/AP hide caption
Bill Cosby speaks during a Veterans Day ceremony this year in Philadelphia.
This may be the first time in a long while that Bill Cosby can't control the public conversation about Bill Cosby.
Read the recent biography Cosby: His Life and Times, and you see a portrait of a talented performer who took control of his business and career interests early on, forever suspicious of journalists and industry executives who might try to interfere.
But in the recent explosion of attention to allegations that the comedy superstar drugged and sexually assaulted several women years ago, in incidents reaching back to the late 1960s, Cosby has remained uncharacteristically silent epitomized by his interview with NPR's Scott Simon, who found the comic would only shake his head and utter no sound when asked about the allegations.
His attorney did provide a statement posted on Cosby's website that said, in part, "decade-old, discredited allegations against Mr. Cosby have resurfaced. The fact that they are being repeated does not make them true. Mr. Cosby doesn't not intend to dignify these allegations with any comment."
Later, a joint statement from Cosby's attorney and a lawyer for Andrea Constand, a woman who settled a lawsuit with Cosby over such allegations in 2006, was posted on the site that read, in part: "The statement released by Mr. Cosby's attorney over the weekend was not intended to refer in any way to Andrea Constand. As previously reported, differences between Mr. Cosby and Ms. Constand were resolved to the mutual satisfaction of Mr. Cosby and Ms. Constand years ago."
News of Cosby's silence rocketed across media; the moment was covered everywhere from NBC's Today show to CNN, USA Today and The Washington Post, which called it "perhaps the most significant dead air in the history of National Public Radio."
When NPR most recently spoke to Cosby, four women had come forward publicly with rape allegations: Constand, Beth Ferrier, Tamara Green and Barbara Bowman. (See this story for a more detailed account of their allegations.) Over the weekend, another woman, 66-year-old publicist Joan Tarshis, also told media outlets she was drugged and raped by Cosby when she was 19 years old. Constand filed a lawsuit in 2005 that included 13 women willing to tell similar stories, Greene and Bowman among them; the suit was settled, no terms were disclosed and Cosby was never charged with a crime.
But several recent events, including the 30th anniversary of The Cosby Show and the publication of the biography, have pushed media to reconsider Cosby's legacy.
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Bill Cosby's Silence On Rape Allegations Makes Huge Media Noise