He told me over and over again, “Trust me like I
was your father.” He zeroed in on that like a laser
beam,’ she said in a recent interview with Daily
Mail.
The 46 year old actress, revealed how Cosby had
sexually abused her several times in her teenage
years, noting how the older man had cajoled her
to trust him like a father.
‘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.’
A few days ago, comedian Hannibal Burress
attacked the image of Bill Cosby and asked why
he was still a much loved American figure despite
several allegations of rape by 13 women.
The attack, has been credited as the spur Barbara
needed to speak up.
“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.”
According to her, ‘And the timing couldn’t be
better. It sickens me to think he’ll be on TV
again, playing a father, no less.’
Bill Cosby is expected to feature in a new sitcom,
to play 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 too afraid to talk back.
Barbara, who admitted that her ambition and
eagerness to please Cosby played a role in her
becoming a victim, disclosed that the advances
began in 1985, when she was a 17-year-old and
had been invited to audition for him.
‘He wanted me to act completely drunk, wasted,
while he stood behind me and stroked my neck
and upper chest. He didn’t touch me beyond that,
on that day, but that’s where it certainly started.
‘Even though it felt off to do the exercise, I gave
it my all. I’d learned from years of acting classes
that I had to take direction. After all, I was in the
presence of the most powerful man in America at
that time. Dr Huxtable chose me!’
She recounted another ordeal in Cosby’s New
York apartment.
‘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?
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