Bill Cosby Goes To Jail - Updated

On November 20, 2014 I wrote a post titled "What I Know About Bill Cosby." I started with this:

In the early 1980s I was living in New York City and working as a flight attendant. I shared an apartment with three other flight attendants, one of whom was having an affair with Bill Cosby. I think she met him on a flight but I don't remember that part for sure. I even spoke to him on the phone once. In those pre-cell phone days, we had one landline phone and we all used the same phone number. I answered the phone one day and it was Mr. Cosby, looking for my roommate. I advised him that she wasn't home at the moment and I would give her the message. He said thank you and that was it.

Unlike rape, infidelity isn't illegal and cheating on his wife doesn't prove that he rapes women. On the other hand, when The Cosby Show hit it big in 1984 and Cosby became America's warm, wise, cuddly role model husband and father, I had personal evidence that his private life didn't match his public image. (Read the entire post here.)

The post includes a link to a December 30, 2015 Daily Beast article by entertainment blogger Mark Ebner, titled "I warned you about Bill Cosby," in which he refers to an article he first wrote in 2007. A version of that article is attached to the Daily Beast post; the most up-to-date version of it appears to be a September 4, 2017 post at Ebner's website, Hollywood Interrupted. (Read it here.) A few months before Ebner's article was posted, People ran a story dated December 18, 2006 and titled "Bill Cosby Under Fire," read that one here.

The fact that Bill Cosby was allowed to get away with so much for so long is rage-inducing today. That rage is only slightly tempered by the sight of 81-year-old Cosby being taken to jail in handcuffs.

And one more thing. In the May, 2000 issue of O Magazine, Oprah interviewed Bill's wife Camille. Mrs. Cosby, who was 54 at the time, said "I'm now in my fifties, and my tolerance level for nonsense is zero." I remembered that quote for years and wanted to be like that. No nonsense, no bullshit, authentic and real, she sounded bad-ass, in a good way. In the last few years, as the truth about her husband came to light, and she loyally stood by him, supporting his claims that he hadn't done anything wrong, I found myself thinking that Mrs. Cosby's tolerance for nonsense (or really, for bullshit and unconscionable crimes against women) appears to have increased. Did she (does she) truly believe he's innocent? There's no way to know. I wonder how she feels today.

Wednesday morning update: Camille Cosby is still standing by her man. She has released a statement in which she claims that some of the evidence against her husband was falsified. Read the statement here.