Several of Bill Cosby's notable celebrity defenders, who had supported the comedian over the past year in the face of dozens of allegations of sexual assault, have remained in his corner despite newly uncovered sworn testimony in which he admitted that he intended to give drugs to women with whom he wanted to have sex.
Whoopi Goldberg, a staunch ally of the comedian, refused to condemn him on The View on Tuesday.
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"I say this because this is my opinion, and in America still, I know it's a shock, but you actually were innocent until proven guilty," Goldberg said.
"He has not been proven a rapist."
"I think, again, we'll see what happens as more information comes out," she continued. "People can make judgments. I don't like snap judgments because I've had snap judgments made on me, so I'm very, very careful. Save your texts, save your nasty comments. I don't care."
Whoopi Goldberg defended Bill Cosby on The View. Photo / Getty
Whoopi Goldberg defended Bill Cosby on The View. Photo / Getty
Goldberg has faced criticism for how she has handled Cosby-related issues on the show in the past. She was widely lambasted for her line of questioning in a December interview with model Beverly Johnson - one of Cosby's accusers - that included such queries as "If you knew that you had been drugged, were you worried about what you might have ingested?"
Co-host Raven-Symoné was slightly more cautious with her response, refusing to outright denounce Cosby.
"I don't like to talk about it that much, because he's the reason I'm on this panel in the first place, he gave me my first job," she said, referring to her stint on The Cosby Show as a child. "At the same time, you need the proof. Then I'll be able to give my judgment here or there."
When Twitter users confronted Faizon Love, the actor best known for playing Big Worm in the "Friday" movies and a well-known Cosby supporter, to see whether he would backtrack on his initial defense of Cosby, Love responded by saying that people should ignore the Cosby news because it was not nearly as important as the recent church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina.
"WHY YALL WORRIED ABOUT THAT BULLS--- BUT NOT WORRIED ABOUT WHATS GOING ON NOW," Love tweeted. "You people kill me with this s---! This withe boy walks into a church and kills 9 people you not mad at that, but this upsets you . . ."
A Twitter user tried to point out that it was in fact possible for black people to be upset about multiple issues simultaneously.
Love wasn't having it.
"BLACK WOMEN AND BLACK CHILDREN BEEN RAPED FOR YEARS BUT THIS IS WHAT YOU [. . .] TAKE TO HEART????? SLAVES," Love responded.
Comedian Faizon Love has defended Billy Cosby on Twitter. Photo / Getty
Comedian Faizon Love has defended Billy Cosby on Twitter. Photo / Getty
This sort of invective has been par for the course for Love when it comes to Cosby; he has attacked those who don't agree with them by labeling them as race traitors, and he directed a string of misogynist insults at women who confronted him on Twitter.
It's possible that Love was echoing the sentiment of Phylicia Rashad's initial public comments on Cosby - albeit with just a twinge more misogyny.
"Forget these women," Rashad said last year at a luncheon for Selma. "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."
In a later interview with ABC News, Rashad said that she had been "misquoted," but she maintained her assertion that "this is not about the women."
Singer Jill Scott also expressed skepticism toward the rape allegations and voiced her support for Cosby on Twitter in November. Like Love and Rashad, she argued that people should be skeptical of the rape accusations because she believed there was a larger conspiracy to destroy Cosby's legacy and black culture at large. "I side with substantiated proof when media/society is attempting to destroy a magnificent legacy," she tweeted in December.
Two black women who identified themselves as Cosby's victims, Beverly Johnson and Jewel Allison, attested to this when they spoke about how they worried that if they reported their rapes at the hand of a black man, it would play into a larger betrayal. When Johnson described her experience with Cosby in an article in Vanity Fair, she wondered whether she would be taken seriously or dismissed "as an angry black woman intent on ruining the image of one of the most revered men in the African American community over the last 40 years."
Monday, Scott tweeted her dismay, acknowledging she had been wrong about Cosby because she was satisfied his testimony was "proof."
"Sadly (Cosby's) own testimony offers PROOF of terrible deeds, which is ALL I have ever required to believe the accusations," Scott tweeted. "We live in America. Many African American men are detained &/or imprisoned for crimes without evidence. I will never jump on bandwagons based on social media or hearsay. Proof will always matter more than public opinion. The sworn testimony is proof. Completely disgusted. I stood by a man I respected and loved. I was wrong. It HURTS!!! When you get it ALL right, holla."
But that wasn't enough for many to let her off the hook, because Scott missed the larger point, which was that she reduced the accounts of 30-plus women to "hearsay." Was she only going to believe that a woman had been raped if her accuser came forward and admitted it? When people attempted to explain that, Scott responded defensively.
"Reasoning with the angry & unreasonable? No," she said. "I'm not sorry for standing by my mentor. I'm sorry the accusations (are) true."
- Washington Post