Family man … Bill Cosby as Cliff Huxtable in The Cosby Show. Source: Supplied
HE WAS the TV dad loved by millions, the devoted funnyman who brought sunshine and dispensed pearls of wisdom to his doting wife and kids.
But, according to shocking claims, comic legend Bill Cosby was a manipulative abuser who drugged and sexually assaulted more than a dozen young women.
The 77-year-old has been dogged by accusations of sex assault for more than 20 years.
The allegations were aired again last week when stand-up comedian Hannibal Buress launched an onstage tirade in Cosby’s hometown of Philadelphia, calling the The Cosby Show dad a hypocrite for his “smuggest old black man public persona”.
Buress said: “Pull your pants up, black people. I was on TV in the ‘80s. I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom.
“Yeah, but you raped women, Bill Cosby. So, brings you down a couple notches.”
Barbara Bowman alleges she was raped by Cosby when she was a teenage actor in the late 1980s after he offered to act as her mentor.
She told MailOnline she felt relieved when she heard Buress’s comments.
“I was drugged and raped by that man,’ she told MailOnline. “He is a monster. He came at me like a monster. My hope is that others who have experienced sexual abuse will not be intimidated into silence by the famous, rich and powerful. If I can help one victim, then I’ve done my job.”
Bowman, 46, told Newsweek magazine earlier this year how Cosby had taken advantage of her when she young and impressionable.
She alleges Cosby plied her with alcohol numerous times and even warned her before they went on out-of-town trips: “You aren’t going to fight me this time, are you?”
In 2004, Andrea Constand brought a civil lawsuit against Cosby claiming she had been sexually assaulted.
The lawsuit grew to include 13 other women, all of whom reported being drugged and raped by one the entertainer. Cosby settled under undisclosed terms in 2006.
Cosby has been married to Camille Hanks, the mother of his five children for 50 years.
The most popular comedy stand-up of the 1960s, he was near bankruptcy in the 1980s when took the role of Dr Cliff Huxtable, the part that would elevate him to TV stardom.
Tragically, he lost his only son Ennis, who was shot dead by an attempted robbery on the side of a highway in Los Angeles in 1997.
Bowman said she decided to speak out to give a voice to the victims who couldn’t.
“I want to be the voice for women who are too afraid to speak up,” she told Newsweek.
“If I show the courage, maybe that will encourage others to do the same thing. This man cannot get away with this. He cannot use his power and his money to abuse and rape young women and hide under this veil of wealth and celebrity status and intimidate us any longer. So I put my name out there.
