Oscar nominee Terrence Howard claims that Bill Cosby once blacklisted him. As a brash 19-year-old, Howard had a confrontation with the legendary Cosby, and says he didn’t work for four years after that. Terrence went on to star in Hustle & Flow, for which he was nominated for an Oscar.

Oscar-nominee Terrence Howard almost destroyed his promising acting career when he was axed from The Cosby Show. The Crash star landed his first acting part in the legendary comedy show in 1988 - but he was sacked before any of his scenes were aired.

He explains, “I was 19 and had just moved to New York from Cleveland, I got on The Cosby Show on my second audition ever.” Howard was so angry that his scenes were cut, he confronted the show’s star and producer Bill Cosby - who he claims subsequently blacklisted him in the entertainment business.

He explains, “I told him, ‘I’m a man just like you.’ He didn’t like it, and the casting agent never took my calls again.” Howard didn’t work for four years, but recovered to forge a successful acting career - landing an Academy Award in 2006 for his role in Hustle + Flow.

[From Contact Music]

Obviously it didn’t hurt Howard in the long run, since his film career is doing pretty well these days. The story doesn’t seem that surprising or outlandish to me. After Lisa Bonet - who played one of Cosby’s children on The Cosby Show – filmed a movie that almost got an X rating and then did a nude photo shoot for Rolling Stone, Cosby had her fired because he disapproved. She was given a spinoff show after she threatened legal action. But Cosby has long felt it okay to dictate right and wrong, especially to young people.

Cosby seems to take his role of the moral authority pretty seriously, so Howard’s claims sound legit. It’s pretty damn ironic, considering the claims against Cosby.

Here’s Terrence Howard at the BET Awards on June 24th. Header Los Angeles, California - 24.06.08. Header image of Bill Cosby outside the ‘Late Show With David Letterman’ in New York on January 28th. Images thanks to WENN.

Bill Cosby just settled a case out of court with a woman who claimed he drugged and raped her two years ago. Probably the main reason he settled the case was the fact that there were 13 women willing to testify in court that Cosby had done the exact same thing to them! Two of the women lined up to testify are telling their story to People Magazine. The two former models say that they had beverages while hanging out with Cosby in the 80s and that they woke up hours later feeling sick and with their clothes off. Both of them ended up having relationships with him, which doesn’t mean that their stories aren’t true, just that they were impressionable and rather stupid to keep seeing Cosby afterwards. One of them was just 18 at the time.

The allegations came out after Cosby settled out of court last month a civil lawsuit charging him with sexual assault and drugging a woman in Philadelphia in 2004.

The trial had 13 witnesses lined up, listed as “Jane Does,” who stood ready to testify of similar experiences with the comic.

Barbara Bowman and Beth Ferrier were two of the 13, and both were interviewed and pictured in the People story. The two were represented by JF Images when they were introduced to Cosby in the ’80s. (Neither woman had come forward before, and they do not stand to profit from the allegations as the statute of limitations has expired, according to People.)

Bowman, who is married and now lives in a Phoenix suburb, was 18 when she says Farrell arranged to have her meet Cosby at a Denver nightclub, Turn of the Century. People magazine says Farrell then arranged for Bowman to move to New York, where her professional relationship with Cosby continued. Bowman says that in a Reno hotel in 1986, “(Cosby) took my hand and his hand over it, and he masturbated with his hand over my hand.”

She goes on to say that soon she was in a New York townhouse with Cosby, who gave her a glass of red wine. “The next thing I know,” she is quoted, “I’m sick and nauseous and I’m delusional and I’m limp and … I can’t think straight. … And I just came to, and I’m wearing a (men’s) T-shirt that wasn’t mine, and he was in a white robe.”

Ferrier, a single mom who still lives in Denver, says she was introduced to Cosby by Farrell in the mid-’80s. She tells People that Cosby was her mentor, a “father figure” to her, when she drank some cappuccino in his Denver dressing room and blacked out.

“I woke up in my car in the parking lot with my clothes all a mess,” she tells People. “I was definitely drugged. All I had to drink was coffee, and the room was spinning. Then I wake up with my clothes a mess and my bra unhooked. I wondered, I still wonder, ‘What did he do with me? Why was my bra unhooked? What happened?”‘

Ferrier went on to have an “on-and-off” consensual affair with Cosby for several years.

[via Fark]

Bill Cosby is pretty much on my shit list after he tried to sue Waxy.org for reposting a parody cartoon of him as a wacky clone called “House of Cosbys.” He also drew heat after blaming African-Americans for their plight post-Katrina.

If this shit is true he needs to do some jail time. Unfortunately the statute of limitations is up, so that means that these women can’t bring up their own charges or profit from their stories. He’ll be 70 next year, so it’s surprising that he was pulling this same stunt and was caught at it just two years ago. He’s been married to Camille Cosby since 1964 and they have five children together.

Bill Cosby’s legal team has sent a cease and desist order to popular blogger Andy Baio of Waxy.org for posting the “House of Cosbys” video files. “House of Cosbys” is a cartoon that depicts multiple cloned Cosbys living in a house together, similar to the plot of the Micheal Keaton film, Mulitplicity. Baio is standing his ground, and says that “House of Cosbys” is a parody which falls under fair use guidelines. He points to many other parodies of Cosby, and says that he refuses to be legally bullied:

Here’s House of Cosbys episode one:

Bill Cosby seems like even more of an asshole when you consider that he recently pointed out to Katrina victims that there were high crime rates in New Orleans before the natural disaster:

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This is typical of Cosby, who has lashed out in the past at what he perceives as a violent black popular culture and an unwillingness to change. Cosby has seemed to blame the African American community for their plight and maintains a dismal perspective instead of looking at more broad sociocultural factors and seeing the positive aspects of black culture.