Bill Cosby: I Want to Perform Again

Comedian speaks out before sexual assault trial
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 26, 2017 12:46 PM CDT
Cosby's Daughter: He 'Loves and Respects' Women
In this Feb. 27, 2017, file photo, Bill Cosby departs after a pretrial hearing in his sexual assault case at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa.   (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

Bill Cosby's daughter insists her father "loves and respects women" in an essay published in his defense on NNPA Newsire Wednesday. Evin Cosby, the youngest of Cosby's five children, recalls how her father always wanted the family to be close and says she had a wonderful childhood. She slams the "public persecution" of her father and the media's "cruelty," insisting that the stories of sexual assault Cosby's accusers are telling don't "match up" and were never investigated, yet "they have been accepted as the truth." She says supporters who tried to defend Cosby "were pressured to shut up" and that the media didn't publish their support, and insists Cosby has been deemed guilty even though his trial for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand has not yet started.

"My dad, like anyone in this country, deserves to be treated fairly under the law," she writes. "My dad broke barriers and raised the conscious [sic] of America on important topics, especially for the advancement of women." She does acknowledge he had affairs, but says he never raped anyone and those affairs are "between him and my mother," who have worked things out and moved on. In a separate interview with NNPA Newsire, which NBC News describes as "a consortium of black-owned newspapers," Cosby himself speaks out, though not much about the case specifically. He did say that his career is on hold for now due to the scandal, but that he hopes to perform again someday. Cosby, 79, also said that he is now completely blind. Jury selection in Cosby's trial begins May 22, and the trial is set to start June 5, People reports. (More Bill Cosby stories.)

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