Though the star has vehemently denied most of the accusations that he drugged and sexually assaulted young women seeking career guidance, the stories are taking their toll on his reputation and bankroll.
The stories of Cosby’s purported misdeeds have been around for about a decade, but they recently got new life when a comedian took aim at him and a social media stunt inviting fans to meme the comic went awry.
Cosby, 77, has never faced a judge or jury, let alone been convicted, over the allegations. But it’s clear many people have already tried him in their minds.
When an NPR reporter gave him a chance to deny the allegations, Cosby provided an awkward moment of radio silence, refusing to answer the question. Given the same chance by The Associated Press, he offered no comment. When the interview concluded, he told a reporter that asking him about the allegations was a mark of low integrity and said he’d be appreciative if that portion of the interview was “scuttled.”
Cosby recently old Florida Today he won’t respond to “innuendos,” referring to the women’s accusations.
“I know people are tired of me not saying anything, but a guy doesn’t have to answer to innuendos. People should fact-check. People shouldn’t have to go through that and shouldn’t answer to innuendos,” Cosby told the newspaper in a backstage interview before a sellout performance at the King Center for the Performing Arts in Melbourne, Florida.
More than 20 women have spoken out to various media outlets.
Here are 21 who have spoken with CNN, spoken on camera about their allegations or been the subject of responses from Cosby’s attorneys:
Jewel Allison
Allison was a model and aspiring actress in her late 20s when she first met Cosby in the late 1980s. She says he offered to help her out, inviting her to his home.
When she arrived, no one else there besides Cosby, Allison says. At one point, after taking a few sips of wine, she began to feel “out of it.”
“I realized that something sexual was going on, but I was unable to stop it,” Allison tells CNN.
Allison, an African-American, said she went home crying, feeling she’d been drugged and sexually assaulted by “the one person that meant so much” to her community.
Cosby’s lawyers did not respond to repeated requests by CNN for comment on Allison’s allegation.
Barbara Bowman
In 1985, when Cosby was starring in his eponymous No. 1 TV show as a doting, wisecracking dad and doctor, Bowman, a 17-year-old model and actress, met Cosby in Denver. She came forward with her allegations in 2006 and recently wrote a column in The Washington Post questioning why no one listened to her the first time.
According to Bowman’s account, Cosby visited her numerous times, giving her acting lessons and “flying me around to major cities to events,” she told Newsweek. After she turned 18, Cosby “assaulted (me) a number of times.” In an incident in New York, Bowman “had one glass of wine and then I blacked out. I woke up throwing up in the toilet. … I was wearing a white T-shirt that wasn’t mine, and he was in a white robe.”
In an incident in Atlantic City, an angry Cosby “got on top of me and started taking his pants off and I was screaming and crying and begging him to leave me alone and I fought so hard and I was screaming so loud that he got mad and threw me aside and got away from me, and that was it.”
The Cosby camp replied, “Over the last several weeks, decade-old, discredited allegations against Mr. Cosby have resurfaced. The fact that they are being repeated does not make them true. Mr. Cosby does not intend to dignify these allegations with any comment.”
Chelan
Identifying herself only by a first name during a news conference with lawyer Gloria Allred, Chelan said that she was a 17-year-old aspiring model who worked at the Las Vegas Hilton when her father’s wife wrote and sent pictures of her to Cosby.
Cosby called Chelan at home, arranging to meet her at the Nevada hotel “to introduce me to someone from the Ford modeling agency,” she said.
After she got there, the then-high schooler said Cosby gave her “a blue pill, which he said was an antihistamine, with a double shot of Ameretto.”
Chelan claimed that someone did come into the room, “took a couple of pictures and told me to lose 10 pounds. Then they left.”
That left her alone with Cosby, who she said offered her another shot of Ameretto.
She alleged that Cosby lay down next to her on the bed and began touching her sexually and grunting.
“I could not open my eyes,” Chelan said in a statement. “I couldn’t move or say anything. I felt something warm on my legs. Then I blacked out.”
Chelan claimed she awoke 13 to 16 hours later, at which point Cosby gave her $1,500 and invited her to his next show.
–
Cosby lawyer Singer, passed on her lengthy rap sheet as an indication of her character.
But Traitz spoke openly about her record to CNN, including her last arrest in 2008, which led to more than three years in prison for drug trafficking and possession.
“When I got sent to prison … it saved my life,” she said. “It was a great experience for me.” It ended her addiction to pain pills, and she’s been clean ever since, she said.
Numerous arrests speckle Traitz’s rap sheet, including on suspicion of theft, battery and types of deception — fraud and impersonation — often in connection with drug possession.
She said Cosby pushed himself on her when she worked as a waitress at a restaurant in Los Angeles that Cosby co-owned when she met him in 1969.
Billboard Magazine mentioned Cosby co-owned a restaurant in a 1970 article.
Traitz was either 18 or 19 at the time, she said; she did not recall exactly. But she was fresh out of high school and new to the city, she said.
Cosby offered her a ride home but on the way, told her he’d like to swing by the beach with her in his Rolls Royce, she said. They parked, and he offered her drugs, an array of brightly colored pills, “to relax,” she alleged.
She said no, a few times. “He kept offering me the pills,” she alleged, and it made her feel uncomfortable. She claimed that he then groped her chest, pushing her down in the seat and toward the door, and tried to lie on top of her.
She got out of the car and ran, she said. She added that she was “absolutely not” raped. He tried to calm her, she said, then drove her home in silence.
Cosby’s attorney said her account was not true.
“Ms. Traitz is the latest example of people coming out of the woodwork with fabricated or unsubstantiated stories about my client,” Singer said in a statement.
Victoria Valentino
Playboy bunny Victoria Valentino says her friend Francesca Emerson first introduced her to Cosby hoping to help her get work on his show “I Spy” in the late ’60s.
Valentino says after an interview in his trailer, Cosby invited her and a different friend to dinner.
They drank red wine at dinner, where she says Cosby offered her pills to “cheer up.”
She remembers feeling “stoned,” slurring her words.
She went with him to a place where he had memorabilia, she said. She described it as a space in an apartment building that was like an office, with two love seats and no working phone. It was a “ballers pad,” she said.
At some point during the evening, she says, she was feeling “totally out of it” when she saw Cosby attempting to advance on her passed-out friend. She says she began reaching out to Cosby to pull him off her friend when Cosby pushed her down, first pushing himself near her mouth, before turning her around and raping her.
On why she never spoke out then about the incident, Valentino told CNN, “As a playmate I thought, who would believe me?”
“I couldn’t bring myself to jump into the fire.”
Emerson told CNN that Valentino told her about the alleged incident with Cosby shortly after it happened.
She said Valentino at the time was in a position to be taken advantage of because she was vulnerable and had just lost her son. Valentino told CNN that at the time she was deeply grieving the loss of her 7-year-old son, who had drowned in a pool at her music manager’s house.
Emerson, now 73, said Cosby was never inappropriate with her; in fact, he once gave her $1,000 after she told him she was signing up for food stamps.
Valentino says her daughters knew about this incident. She wrote a story about it and thought about publishing it, but then held back.
“I can’t hear his name … something inside me shrinks and sinks when I think of him,” she said.
CNN repeatedly reached out to Cosby’s attorney for comment regarding Valentino’s allegations but did not hear back.
CNN’s AnneClaire Stapleton, Todd Leopold, Brian Stelter, Susan Candiotti, Ronni Berke, Greg Botelho, Michael Martinez and Kristina Sgueglia contributed to this report.
