Several media outlets published the statement that Camille Cosby gave after the mistrial was declared in the Bill Cosby indecent assault case.
I don’t really know much about Mrs. Cosby other than that she is standing by her husband’s side. I wonder if she really thinks her husband is totally innocent and every one of the ~60 accusers consented to the contact they had with him?
Obviously no one knows what goes on inside another couple’s marriage. Curious to know what others think of her statement.
I know absolutely zero about her. I don’t know if she actually believes this or it is just a public show.
If she truly believes this though, it never fails to astound me how people can honestly believe that an entire system of strangers is conspiring against them. I think that’s giving humans too much credit. We’re not that good at things.
I think she is mad that one prosecutor declined to prosecute and this one made it a campaign promise. I don’t know if she should have gone after the judge but it is her life to live.
@doschicos it’s also entirely possible that it’s an abusive situation. If he acts towards her like he acted towards his “alleged” victims, then it wouldn’t surprise me if she has some sort of battered person syndrome. When I worked at the IPV shelter, a lot of women would swing dramatically from describing the abuse that they suffered to defending their abuser and lashing out at those trying to help.
Again, NOT projecting at all. I’m inclined to side with you, dos. I’m just throwing it out as a blind possibility.
He’s old and sick, he’s admitted to cheating on her repeatedly, he’s the father of all their children (I presume). I doubt he is capable of chasing any more women and she’s probably just mad it’s going to end like this, after all their public good works. She got smeared because of him and that can’t be fun.
A psychologist once told me to replace the name of a person being badmouthed with the name that should be inserted and you would more likely than not hear their cry for help (in the case of an abused/addicted person blaming friends/family for trying to step in, and badmouthing the one trying to help)…let me see if that works in Mrs. Cosby’s quote:
“How do I describe Bill Cosby? Heinously and exploitively ambitious. How do I describe Bill Cosby? Overtly arrogant (and collaborating with the district attorney). How do I describe Bill Cosby? Totally unethical. How do I describe Bill Cosby? Blatantly vicious entities that continually disseminated intentional omissions of truths for the primary purpose of greedily selling sensationalism at the expense of a human life.”
It certainly wouldn’t be first time that a wife in a high profile marriage defends a husband who others presumably find guilty of everything that has been alleged.
She’s a formidable woman. Her marriage is her business. She’s on record as saying she knew he was a philanderer and with a 50+ year marriage, 5 children and a masters and doctoral degree during the marriage I highly doubt what happens to her husband will or should tarnish her.
Speaking as someone who completely believes that Cosby is guilty as charged, I don’t disagree strongly with any of those statements. The DA rode this case into office and made it his political signature. The accusers’ attorneys are relentlessly self-promotional, and clearly are in it for an enormous payday as much as for any feminist vindication. I didn’t follow the case closely enough to have a real opinion about the judge, but he didn’t rule for Cosby on any significant question of which I was aware. (That’s not to say I think he should have.)
Like many crusades, this was not a case of Good vs. Evil. There were a lot of morally compromised people around that courthouse. And I can certainly understand Camille Cosby’s fury that she should have to have her whole life revolve around this incident for two-plus years (and counting), when she legitimately thought it was behind her over a decade ago. Of course, a lot of that fury should be (and almost certainly is) directed against her husband. But his role in the whole incident is water long under the bridge, while from Camille Cosby’s perspective the “other woman” keeps coming after her, humiliating her further, demanding more money, more attention, more control.
Again, acknowledging Bill Cosby’s indefensible behavior(s), I bet Camille Cosby feels that she worked hard to preserve her family and her dignity in the face of that for years and years, and she has fully earned her share of her husband’s wealth and status. And some ambitious younger woman is trying to take that away – has largely succeeded in taking lots of that away, even if Cosby never gets convicted – on the basis of what seems to have been a 90-second encounter that might not have happened at all if she hadn’t been flirting with Cosby and trying to get money and support out of him in the first place.
Is that blaming the victim? Of course it is. But there’s a huge gap between saying that flirtatious behavior doesn’t constitute consent to sexual assault (it doesn’t) and saying that being a victim of sexual assault renders someone blameless in all respects, retroactively and prospectively. Not from where Camille Cosby stands.
Camille could’ve had her dignity and his money years ago. I have zero sympathy for her. He even bragged about doing this during his stand up routines years ago. She can take her indignation and stick it where he sun doesn’t shine.
They’ve been through a lot in their marriage. I’m not sure if multiple affairs is considered “abusive” or not but, yes, not a model marriage. They also had a child die which I think can either tear a couple apart or make them cling together.
Regardless, although I can intellectually understand her codependency in this and be a tad sympathetic, I still don’t respect her actions.
“I highly doubt what happens to her husband will or should tarnish her.”
Her actions here with these kind of statements will, though.
“A psychologist once told me to replace the name of a person being badmouthed with the name that should be inserted and you would more likely than not hear their cry for help”
I like this! I’m going to try this with tweets.
I wonder how Camille Cosby would feel if let’s say some older, rich man spiked the drink of one of her daughters and then had sex with her, if she would be claiming it was a conspiracy? Or would she want blood? Leaving out the specifics of this one case, that did have grandstanding in it and also came down to a he said she said IMO, when you have so many allegations against him, many of them involving drugging, how the hell do you put your head in the sand like that and pretend like it is all a vendetta? She would have done herself and her family a lot more stead by keeping quiet about the verdict (which is not an acquittal, a hung jury could be one person holding out who thought Cosby was a hero, how the heck do we know why they voted the way they did, it could be someone who only saw Cosby as the dad on his tv show). What bothers me is with the tone of her comments, she makes it sound like her husband was this victim, that he did nothing wrong, and what that smacks of to me is a person trying to find a way to excuse herself for putting up with this humiliation for so long, and totally ignoring the horrible behavior of her husband because to be blunt, it makes her look bad.
And these strong emotional responses are why he said/she said cases get deadlocked…and this thread is about the wife of the accused not even the accused. Good grief.
Mrs. Cosby similarly found others to direct her anger to when she sadly lost her son to murder. As I recall, she more or less said society in general was responsible for the death of Ennis Cosby because the perpetrator seemed to be a bigot and likely learned bigotry from U.S. society (the perp was an immigrant, if I remember correctly).