Celebs Who Tried to Warn Us About Bill Cosby...

WatchMojo

These celebs knew the truth about Bill Cosby and we're afraid to tell people. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at celebrities who made written or vocal statements about Bill Cosby prior to the expansive media coverage of the scandal.

Transcript

00:00 I have a little story for you.

00:01 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at celebrities who made written or vocal statements

00:07 about Bill Cosby prior to the expansive media coverage of the scandal.

00:12 This is not greed.

00:14 This is a day of reckoning.

00:15 This is not greed.

00:17 This is accountability.

00:20 Wendy Williams.

00:21 Well, known far and wide for The Wendy Williams Show, Williams was once a prominent shock

00:28 DJ.

00:29 She found work on WRKS and hosted a segment called Dish the Dirt in which she would gossip

00:34 about celebrities.

00:36 Once upon a time, I worked at a radio station here in New York called 98.7 Kiss.

00:41 One of her targets was Bill Cosby.

00:43 The National Enquirer had published a not so nice story about Cosby, and Williams discussed

00:49 the allegations on air.

00:51 So I dust the article off, and I talk about it in my Dish the Dirt segment, you know,

00:57 with the Wake Up Club.

00:58 Cosby got wind of the segment and reportedly phoned the station himself, demanding that

01:02 Williams be fired.

01:04 This was all the way back in 1990, a good 25 years before the scandal toppled the famous

01:10 comedian.

01:11 Cosby's on the speakerphone.

01:12 Cosby dressed me down and called me everything but a daughter of God.

01:17 Now that's my own personal account with these allegations.

01:20 Unfortunately, Williams' warnings were not heeded.

01:24 She wasn't fired, but the intervention from Cosby was enough to kill the story in its

01:29 tracks.

01:30 Charlotte Laws You may know this celebrity by her stage name,

01:34 Missy Laws.

01:35 Laws has many different jobs, but her most prominent work was with BBC News, where she

01:41 acted as a contributor.

01:52 She also worked with KNBC-TV, serving as a weekly commentator on their program, The Filter

01:58 with Fred Rogan.

02:00 In November of 2014, Laws wrote an article for Salon titled, "Bill Cosby and Drugging,

02:06 My 34-Year-Old Secrets."

02:08 I didn't even think about coming forward until 2005 because I didn't think there was anything

02:15 to come forward about.

02:17 In the article, Laws claims that Cosby drugged her friend back in 1981.

02:21 This piece was widely read and landed Laws on shows like Dr. Drew and Fox News.

02:27 In the latter interview, Laws suggested that Cosby has somnophilia, or a sexual attraction

02:33 to unconscious people.

02:39 In September of 1963, aspiring actress Victoria Valentino was named the Playboy Playmate of

02:45 the Month.

02:46 Six years later, she was allegedly assaulted by Bill Cosby, who had recently released his

02:51 album To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With.

02:58 According to Valentino, Cosby took her and a friend out to a dinner and gave them each

03:03 a pill.

03:14 He then took the drugged women to his house and engaged in acts of sexual assault.

03:19 Valentino reportedly told this story in a 1996 exposé on Playboy models, but the interview

03:25 was never published.

03:26 Valentino sued Cosby in 2023 after California abolished the statute of limitations for sexual

03:33 abuse.

03:45 Before finding work as a journalist, Joan Tarshish was an aspiring actress and comedy

03:50 writer working in Hollywood.

03:52 She met Bill Cosby in 1969, the same year that he allegedly assaulted Victoria Valentino.

04:10 Cosby abused Tarshish on two separate occasions.

04:14 Once at his personal bungalow and again in a New York City hotel.

04:22 About ten years later, Tarshish approached a freelance reporter named John Milward and

04:26 told him about the sexual assaults that she had experienced at the hands of Cosby.

04:31 However, Milward decided against publishing the story and Tarshish's experience went unheard.

04:42 What's next?

05:02 Hannibal Buress Someone had to open the floodgates and that

05:06 someone was comedian Hannibal Buress.

05:16 As we've learned, Bill Cosby's history of sexual abuse was an open Hollywood secret,

05:21 with reports even making it as far as the National Enquirer.

05:25 But nothing was done about it until Buress joked about Cosby's skeevy past during a

05:29 stand-up routine in Philadelphia.

05:49 The resulting media attention turned the cultural spotlight on to Cosby's history of sexual

05:53 assault and kick-started his eventual downfall.

06:03 It also encouraged many other celebrities to come forth with their own unfortunate stories,

06:08 including Janis Dickinson, Louisa Moritz, and Michelle Hurd.

06:20 Here's what's next!

06:29 (upbeat music)

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