Some sad and disturbing revelation has emerged of American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist Bill Cosby. The star act of ‘The Bill Cosby Show’ once stellar reputation has been tarnished by his sexual exploits.'
She describes in chilling detail how Cosby manipulated
her into believing he was a father figure and took advantage of her youth, vulnerability
and yes, even ambition, to have his way with her over and over again.
'I was drugged and raped by that man. 'He is a monster.
He came at me like a monster. My hope is that others who have experienced
sexual abuse will not be intimidated into silence by the famous, rich and
powerful. If I can help one victim, then I've done my job.'
What began as a dream in 1985 with a private 'audition' for Cosby ended two years later in screams for help while being pinned down to the comic's hotel bed. Barbara, now 47, says it's time to end her code of silence — a silence that at least 13 other victims have followed — spanning three decades.
'I'm finally revealing all of my full story in hopes that others will learn to read the tell-tale signs of abuse and not wait as long as I did. No one believed me for years. They said Bill would never do that. That it was preposterous. But I'm putting my name out there and standing behind these words, just like Burress. No more code of silence.'
Now, 25 years after the multiple incidents of drugging,
sexual assault, and even rape at the hands of the now 77-year-old Cosby,
Barbara said: 'I've been silent too long. It's time to raise a fuss. I'm a real
person that this happened to. And it's taken decades to get over what he did to
me.
'I thank Hannibal Burress for speaking out over and over
again, despite the threats from the Industry that it could ruin his career. He
is standing up for me and the other women who are too afraid to speak out.
'And the timing couldn't be better. It sickens me to
think he'll be on TV again, playing a father, no less.'
Barbara's fear is that her perpetrator will actually hit
the NBC airwaves again, as soon as next summer in a new sitcom, playing a
patriarchal father figure, just like he played the quintessential family man Dr
Cliff Huxtable on The Bill Cosby Show in the 1980s.
'Maybe he should also teach his fictitious TV family how
to escape the talons of sexual predators. Bill used to tell me that he was my
father figure and that I needed to trust him as a father, 100 percent. Then he'd
drug me and attack me. I was to afraid to talk back.
'He told me over and over again, "Trust me like I
was your father." He zeroed in on that like a laser beam.'
While other victims were allegedly given hush money to
prevent them from going public with their accusations, and another settled
after filing a court case against Cosby, Barbara is free to speak out.
'I never took shut up money. My motivation to speak now
is to expose Bill Cosby as the animal that he is. He went after me in that
hotel room like an animal with such sexual prowess and force that he couldn't
control himself. And at 19-years-old, I knew it would be the last time he would
ever get the chance to hurt me this way again.'
Barbara said there were times she'd
push him away, but then she'd give in. It was Reno, Nevada. 1986. Cosby's hotel
suite was darkened.
'He turned out all the lights. It
was completely pitch black. He laid me down on the couch and started caressing
and touching me all over. Then he put my hand on his penis, covering it with
his hand. He had me masturbate him. I couldn't see what was going on.
When it was over, I ran out of the
room and threw up.
'It was so invasive and frightening
and humiliating. There was no way I could tell my mother. I couldn't even admit
it to myself. I tried to convince myself that I'd imagined it. That it was a
one-time thing, that it wouldn't happen again. I was paralyzed with fear.
It did happen again. Barbara calls
it 'the apartment incident.'
'He invited me to his New York brownstone for dinner. Staff was there. We ate in the kitchen. I had one glass of red wine with dinner. My next recollection is me, coming to, slumped over the toilet bowl, throwing up. I was wearing a man's white t-shirt and my panties.
'The t-shirt was not mine. Bill was
standing over me, holding my hair out of my face as I threw up. I had no idea
how I'd gotten there. I'd had one glass of wine with dinner. He was trying to
soothe me with his words, "It will be okay. It's okay."
'By the time I came to, the staff
was gone. No one in the house but us. And as the fogginess lifted, he escorted
me to the couch where I recovered. I then got dressed and he called me a cab.
'I was mystified. It was a sick pit
in my stomach, knowing that I was out of control over the last undetermined
amount of time. And that I was undressed, while he was in a white robe, and how
had I gotten there?
Barbara is certain she was drugged
by Cosby. And she believes raped by him too.
'I know for sure he forced himself
multiple times upon me and since he needed to create an environment in which I
could not fight him, I can't in all honesty say that I recall penetration
because at that time I was in a vacant state of mind, as I was often drugged
and brainwashed.
'Whatever drug he gave me, didn't
allow me to think clearly when it was over and done with. It didn't register
that I should be panicking. It was like amnesia almost. It was like what a
lobotomy would do to you. I couldn't even think clearly when I was awake. I was
vacant.'
Why Barbara didn't even tell her
mother, her closest confidant, of the abuse?
'I was ashamed and scared, first of
all. The active part of my brain kept saying to me, 'I'm on top of the world. I
was special, with something unique that other aspiring actresses didn't have. I
had a false sense of superiority. I felt that I was the chosen one. No cattle
calls or paying dues or groveling for jobs. I had the biggest connection ever.
'I wasn't completely aware of the
dissection of my spirit and what was really happening. I had a sense of
obligation to give Bill 100 percent.
'My brain was telling me not to
believe it, like I was imagining it not to be true, so much so that I
rationalized it away. Pushed it away. If I ignored it, it didn't exist. It was
a small price to pay. I thought this was all part of the deal.'
Every time Barbara boarded a plane,
at Cosby's request, she would 'pray and pray' on the way to meeting him that
this time it wouldn't happen again.
'After all, here I was, picked out
of millions of girls, groomed to be a superstar, by a superstar, one of the
most important, trustworthy, influential figures in America at that time.'
In fact, Cosby so believed in
Barbara's talents, that he moved her into a small apartment in Manhattan to
take acting classes at HB Studios in the West Village.
'Bill was my benefactor for sure.
Though the agreement was that once I started booking jobs, I'd repay that
loan.'
Meanwhile, the sexual and emotional
abuse continued.
'I told myself that it wasn't going
to happen anymore. Yet it did.'
Cosby started to sense that Barbara
was pulling away. That the tight hold he had on her 'was unraveling', she said.
'And, it was getting dangerous for him. He started to separate himself from me, as well. I'd been abruptly moved from the New York City apartment he set me up in, to a distant house in Roslyn, New York, 45 minutes away by train.'
The last straw occurred in Atlantic
City, where Cosby was performing. He flew in Barbara to be with him. By this
point, the scenario was obvious.
'A car picked me up at the airport.
I went to my penthouse hotel room. But my luggage didn't arrive. I called the
concierge to inquire where my bag was, before I went to bed.'
Oddly, Barbara awoke that next morning to discover her luggage had been placed inside her room, part of Cosby suite.
'Who delivered the bag? Certainly,
the concierge wouldn't have entered my room unannounced. Once again I wondered
what happened after I'd fallen asleep.
Then, Bill summoned me into his
room. There, he berated me, "What the hell is the matter with you! How
dare you have no discretion! You know you're supposed to be discreet. You've
embarrassed me. You were drunk."
'He freaked out that I disclosed to
the concierge the fact that a 19-year-old girl was calling from his penthouse.
He couldn't handle it. He throws me down on his bed and jumps on top of me. He
used his forearm to pin me down by the neck.
'He was trying to unbuckle his belt
and take down his pants. I'll never forget the sound of the clinking of his
belt buckle. He couldn't get his belt off. I'm screaming for help and trying to
wrestle out of his grip while he's trying to get his belt off and he's trying
to pull my pants down at the same time. I couldn't get out from under him.
'I didn't stop screaming. He realizes I'm not stopping. He finally gets to a point of frustration and decides it's too much trouble and he doesn't want to risk it. He gets off me and calls me a "baby." That's when he throws me out.
'Within days, Barbara was also
thrown out of the Roslyn house, subsidized by Bill and her agent. She was
forced to get on a plane home to Denver that day, without even getting a chance
to get her personal belongings. The landlord had locked her out.
'I'd already paid rent. I knew this
was no coincidence. Earlier that day, the manager at the grocery store I was
working at, told me I had an urgent phone call. It was Bill. He reemed me out
and basically told me I was finished. I hung up my apron and walked out the
door. I was told I was going home to Denver. Immediately.'
Barbara later sued the landlord and
won back her personal belongings, plus $830.77 in damages. But things got much
worse when Barbara returned to her mother's Denver home. Her high-powered agent
and friend of Cosby's ordered her to take a drug test and a pregnancy test.
Both lab results were negative.
'It was so weird. It didn't make any
sense. I wasn't having sex or doing drugs at all. I couldn't figure out why she
made me take these tests. What made her believe I needed to take them? Or that
I'd failed to hold up my end of the bargain? I was working hard at my classes
in New York.'
While 're-grouping' at her mother's
home, Barbara saved enough money to go back to New York to pursue her career on
her own terms.
'I cashed in my savings bonds, sold my car, and my mother gave me some money.'
The following years marked success
for Barbara. She starred in more than 30 national TV commercials, including
ones for McDonalds, Miller Light and Holiday Inn.
She also had guest spots on Saturday
Night Live, One Life to Live, and All My Children.
She eventually moved to Los Angeles
and continued to excel in film and TV.
'But I never got the career that I
was meant to have.'
Eventually a girlfriend convinced
her to meet with a lawyer in 1987.
'He laughed me out of the office. He said I was delusional, ridiculous, making these stories up. No one believed me. I called Gloria Allred. No one would listen. They thought I was making up stuff to get money. I never asked for or was given a penny. That's not the point. But it shut me up. I didn't need one more authority figure to tell me I was full of s***.'
'To be totally honest, I could
barely deal with the truth myself. I was holding back and embarrassed about the
hand job. I was still afraid I was going to be condemned. I went into the
lawyer's office confident he would help me. I walked out with my tail between
my legs, just like when Bill threw me out of that hotel room for the last time.
I was smacked down.'
In 2004, when another rape victim
Andrea Constand went public with her plight by filing a lawsuit against Cosby,
Barbara said she made it her 'mission' to support her.
'I believed her because the details
of her assaults were eerily similar to mine. I knew she was telling the truth
and needed someone to support her because no one else was.'
Barbara was one of 13 victims called
upon to take the witness stand in Constand's civil lawsuit. Constand settled
out of court for an undisclosed sum in 2006.
'But much to my shock, while I was
en-route to Philadelphia for a local news appearance, Bill's lawyers learned I
was going to speak publicly about my sexual assaults. By the time I landed, I
was told Constand had settled out of court. The code of silence continued.
'Here it was. All of the women came out of the woodwork. I was eager to sit on the witness stand. Andrea's story of being drugged and sexually assaulted was the same as mine, and she was being dragged through the mud.
'I was so deflated. They came to a
settlement while I was on the plane. I got the bad news when I landed. Get the
broom. Under the rug it goes'
In the period following the 2006
settlement, Cosby went on a college lecture tour and began a campaign, speaking
to young black youth to 'pull up their pants' and stop whining about their
plight.
'He was diverting attention from his
reprehensible behavior by reinventing himself as an advocate for youth
empowerment. Once again, our story took a back seat.
'Step one is exposing Bill Cosby as
the monster he is. Step two is getting support from public figures, like
Burress, who had the courage to speak out. Hollywood's not deaf. Buress is
surely not the only one to know about this. But no one is talking. There's too
much to lose. Yet, that leaves us victims feeling like we are on a desert
island fending for ourselves, and that's a lonely place to be.'
Though Barbara is now a successful
abstract expressionist artist in Scottsdale, Arizona and a happily married
mother of two, she admits to still being haunted by what Cosby did to
her.'Those experiences live inside me. They take up space in my brain and
altered the course of my emotional development and altered the course of my
career.
'Being assaulted like that made a
huge impact on my ability to trust my own instincts, as well as others'
actions. It was a block I've been working to undo. And a block that Bill Cosby
is solely responsible for creating.'
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