Over the past six months, the pile of Bill Cosby sexual allegations grew into the Mount Kilimanjaro of celebrity scandals. I appreciate how Vulture keeps a running timeline on all new (and old) developments. Throughout it all, Bill Cosby’s former Cosby Show co-stars have remained relatively silent. I don’t blame them one bit. They appeared on a show together decades ago. Most of them were children and had no idea how Cosby behaved behind closed doors. Unless they want to speak, they should be left alone — unlike Camille Cosby. I initially felt like Camille should be off limits too because she’s married to a master manipulator, but Camille has had no problem painting Bill as the victim.

One of Cosby’s co-stars took a major stance yesterday. Phylicia Rashad played the wife of Cosby’s lovable dad and OB/GYN character. She ran into journo Roger Friedman on the street and decided to engage in a righteous round of victim blaming:

Let’s make something clear. Rashad, who is one of our greatest stage actresses, has kept quiet, didn’t seek me out, and even said “I don’t want to become part of the public debate.”

But knowing this she did say to me “I love him” about Bill Cosby. She stands defiantly behind him. She told me that in the years she’s known him, she has never seen the behavior alleged by the women who say they were drugged and raped, or sexually harassed.

“Forget these women,” Rashad said. “What you’re seeing is the destruction of a legacy. 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.”

Rashad dismisses claims from both Beverly Johnson and Janice Dickinson. “Oh, please,” she said when their names came up. She also is quick to defend Camille Cosby. “This is a tough woman, a smart woman,” she told me. “She’s no pushover.” There is no question, Rashad said, that Camille Cosby has not been complicit or looked the other way as her husband terrorized women for the last 50 years.

She said, “Someone is determined to keep Bill Cosby off TV,” alluding to people other than the women. “And it’s worked. All his contracts have been cancelled.”

We talked more about the legacy of The Cosby Show. “This show represented America to the outside world. This was the American family. And now you’re seeing it being destroyed. Why?”

She said Cosby himself is probably too proud to raise a defense. So what to do about Cosby’s accusers? Rashad feels strongly that some other force is at play — for some reason, Cosby’s great strides in education, as well as show business, are being ruined so that new generations will only remember him by this scandal. And what about a defense from the man himself? “If he spoke now, what do you think the media would do with it?” Rashad asked. And let’s face it, she’s right about that.

[From Showbiz 411]

Big sigh. According to Rashad, this has nothing at all to do with bad behavior on Cosby’s part. Rashad thinks all 30+ of Cosby accusers are only making stuff up — for fun? She truly believes that the world is out to get him. To destroy a legacy. To destroy the America family. To bring the very idea of America to its knees. Continuing to type and roll my eyes is pretty difficult, y’all.

There’s a lot wrong with what Rashad says, but it’s laughable how she thinks Cosby hasn’t defended himself. He has done so in sketchy, terrible ways. He’s digging up dirt on victims, joking and pretending to cry during his comedy routines, and trying to guilt the black media and manipulate individual journos to their faces. I’m sure he’s doing plenty of other stuff too. Rashad’s “poor Cosby” claims are ridiculous.

Photos courtesy of WENN