Phylicia Rashad Misquoted by Reporter: Cosby Star Clarifies Statement; Believes People Are Out to 'Obliterate' Bill's Legacy
Phylicia Rashad believes people are trying to ruin the legacy of her beloved television husband from The Cosby Show.
Rashad, the 66-year-old Tony Award winning actress, insisted she did not want to "become part of the public debate" when speaking to Roger Friedman from ShowBiz 411 but may have managed to do just that when speaking up about the Bill Cosby scandal. Rashad starred as Clair Huxtable alongside Bill Cosby in hit 1980s and 1990s family sitcom, "The Cosby Show."
However, the last few months have been filled with allegations and lawsuits from over 20 women who claim Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted them over the span of 50 years. Still, Rashad believes in her former television husband despite the growing number of allegations mounting against him.
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"Forget these women. What you're seeing is the destruction of a legacy," Rashad said in a Showbiz 411 report. "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."
She explained the statement which she felt was misquoted by media outlets in further detail to ABC News.
"That is not what I said," Rashad told ABC News. "What I said is, 'This is not about the women. This is about something else. This is about the obliteration of legacy.'"
Rashad responded to the allegations of sexual assault at the hands of Cosby from supermodels such as Beverly Johnson and Janice Dickinson with an "Oh, please." However, some like attorney Gloria Allred were not supportive of her statements saying, "Phylicia, you should be supporting these women," at a press conference.
However, Rashad made it clear that she would never ask people to completely forget the women who were claiming they were abused.
"I am a woman. I would never say such a thing," Rashad insisted.
Roger Friedman of Showbiz 411 cleared up Rashad's statements that he wrote in a story after speaking with her.
"I did not misquote Phylicia Rashad. But she didn't mean for it to be taken the way it was, and I should have punctuated," Friedman wrote on Showbiz 411. "There was NEVER the meaning in 'Forget those women' that she was saying to actually forget or dismiss then. She meant, 'those women aside' – as in, she's not talking about that, she's talking about Cosby's legacy being destroyed. It was conversational."
While Cosby's wife Camille Cosby has defended the comedian, his former television wife seemed to support the woman's stance and did not believe she was turning a blind eye to what was happening with her husband.
"This is a tough woman, a smart woman," Rashad said. "She's no pushover."
For Rashad, the growing number of allegations against Cosby could be attempts to keep Cosby off of television screens.
"Someone is determined to keep Bill Cosby off TV, and it's worked. All his contracts have been cancelled," Rashad told Showbiz 411 before speaking about Cosby's legacy. "This show represented America to the outside world. This was the American family. And now you're seeing it being destroyed. Why?"
Keshia Knight Pulliam, 35, played Cosby's television daughter Rudy Huxtable on "The Cosby Show." She also defended Cosby recently.
"Ultimately, they're just that, allegations. You know, it's very much been played out in the court of public opinion," she told "The Today Show." "But we're still in America, where ultimately you're innocent until proven guilty... That's just not the man I know."
