CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on Bill Cosby Scandal, Whoopi Goldberg: Comedian’s Argument ‘Is Absurd’
“New Day” anchor tells TheWrap that the comedian’s damning deposition has made his accusers “feel truly vindicated”
Jordan Chariton | July 22, 2015 @ 9:03 AM
Last Updated: July 22, 2015 @ 1:30 PM
Over the last year, the scandal surrounding Bill Cosby has been the subject of countless hours of TV news as broadcast and cable news networks spoke to dozens of women accusing the comedy icon of drugging and raping them.
CNN “New Day” anchor Alisyn Camerota was one the journalists leading the charge, and used her background as a former crime reporter for “America’s Most Wanted” to sort through fact or fiction. Since joining the cable news network last summer, she has interviewed a dozen of Cosby’s alleged victims — each one more than once — and maintains “very, very, very rarely does someone make a false claim.”
“I have not really been surprised that things seem to be reaching a crescendo because I think when there’s a groundswell of this many victims it does keep building on itself,” she told TheWrap in a wide-ranging interview. “Barbara Bowman really opened the floodgates and then a tidal wave happened where there’s a phenomenon in strength in numbers.”
Since the 1,000-page deposition was released last week, Camerota spoke with several of the accusers. “They feel truly vindicated,” she said.
As a TV news pro, the morning anchor knows the most important thing is finding the fresh angle on the big story, but with the Cosby saga, ripe with a gauntlet of storylines — sexual assault, race, celebrity — it’s wasn’t automatically clear where to begin.
“It does have all those different angles,” she said, explaining that she started with a focus on the accusers’ stories, which were so “strikingly similar.”
After it became clear there had to be a call to action, Camerota, like the accusers, asked, “Now what?”
“How do you make someone who you said did this pay?” the anchor asked. And through conversations with accusers, Camerota explained many hope there’s a flicker of hope that through a defamation lawsuit and the 2008 case, Cosby will have his day in court.
But even with the court of public opinion reaching a guilty verdict on Cosby long ago, Camerota still had to put on her detective hat as an anchor, reading the accusers she interviewed to evaluate if any were lying or showing an agenda.
Luckily, her experience interviewing victims and fugitives gave her plenty of expertise.
“In my experience, very, very, very rarely does someone make a false claim, and the reason is it’s embarrassing; it’s humiliating,” Camerota said. “Nobody wants to talk about something so personal, and so ugly that they say happened to them, and say it on national television.”
This insight made Camerota inclined to believe Cosby had done wrong: “These were women that weren’t looking for fame, or money from him, so what would be their motivation to come forward? They have families, they have jobs, why would they risk their reputation and their privacy to come forward if not just for the sake of telling the truth.”
Vice versa, Camerota made up her mind quickly after watching Cosby’s bizarre silent interview with the Associated Press, reading the 2005 deposition, and hearing suggestions he didn’t think his actions were rape.
“The thing that blows that whole excuse out of the water is the Quaaludes — you can’t say you’re having nonsexual sex when you’re feeding them Quaaludes,” Camerota continued, noting the powerful drug incapacitates people, pouring cold water on Cosby likening it to giving a woman a glass of wine. “His argument that this was consensual is absurd on its face because you don’t have to drug women if you’re having consensual sex.”
Another argument people found absurd was made by “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg, who initially defended Cosby, citing America’s standard of being innocent until proven guilty.
“I take Whoopi at her word that it was hard to speak out against a fellow comedian, particularly a black comedian, but at the end of the day, when the evidence suggests he was at least doing something untoward and against women’s wishes, even for Whoopi, she had to admit the preponderance of evidence now seemed to not support what she said all along.”
“Not only celebrities, but we had some of the victims come on who were black, and they said it was hard for them to come forward because he was such a pillar, he was a pillar of the entertainment community,” Camerota continued. “He had this outward appearance of being such a role model and such a stand-up guy.”
Like the rest of the media, Camerota doesn’t have a crystal ball to take a peek at Cosby’s future, but she does have the first sentence of his obituary written.
“The legendary comedian, once America’s favorite television dad, became embattled and disgraced under the cloud of sexual assault allegations from dozens of women.”
Bill Cosby Scandal Timeline: From First Accusation to Jail Sentence (Photos)
Bill Cosby, once one of Hollywood's most beloved stars, has dramatically fallen from grace since facing multiple accusations of sexual assault and misconduct -- leading to a criminal conviction in 2018 on three counts of aggravated sexual assault. Here's a look back at the scandal.
1965
In 2014, Kristina Ruehli accused Bill Cosby of sexually assaulting her when she was 22 years old.
Cosby admits to paying $100,000 to a woman named Shawn Berkes to keep secret an extramarital affair they had in the 1970s. But he denied he was the father of her 22-year-old daughter.
Cosby delivers his famous "Pound Cake" speech at NAACP Awards, criticizing too-permissive parenting by African-Americans. A judge later cited the moralizing speech when unsealing Cosby's deposition in 2015.
A video of comedian Hannibal Buressdoing a stand-up routine about Cosby's reputation with women goes viral, bringing the accusations back to public attention.
One of the comedian's most outspoken critics, Judd Apatow, begins his Twitter crusade against Cosby. "Guys who rape a lot aren’t cool," the director writes.
Phylicia Rashad, the actress who played Cosby's wife for eight seasons on "The Cosby Show," defends her former TV husband: "What you’re seeing is the destruction of a legacy. And I think it’s orchestrated."
Cosby breaks his silence on the allegations in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America." "I have been in this business over 52 years, and I have never seen anything like this," he says.
A judge makes public Cosby's 2005 deposition from the Andrea Constand civil suit. In the documents, Cosby admits to obtaining Quaaludes to give to young women he intended to have sex with.
After months of defending her friend against his accusers on "The View," co-host Whoopi Goldberg reverses course, saying, "All of the information that’s out there kind of points to guilt.” Her reversal follows other former Cosby backers like singer Jill Scott.
After obtaining the full 1,000-page deposition from the Constand case, The New York Times publishes excerpts that detail his history of womanizing with women as young as 19.
A week after Cosby filed a countersuit for defamation against seven of his accusers, the comedian sued model Beverly Johnson for defamation. A complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court accuses Johnson of trying to push herself back into the limelight with a false allegation that he drugged her and attempted to have sex with her.
Getty Images
Dec. 30, 2015
Cosby was arraigned on felony charges of criminal sexual assault stemming from a purported incident more than a decade earlier in Pennsylvania involving a former Temple University employee. A previous district attorney declined to charge the star in 2005.
Smoking Gun
Feb. 3, 2016
Pennsylvania judge Steven O’Neill denies Cosby's lawyers' request to have the criminal sexual assault charges dismissed.
The judge rules only one of the 13 other accusers prosecutors had planned to call to the stand may testify at the criminal trial. The unnamed woman was previously employed by Cosby's former agent at WME.
Getty Images
May 16, 2017
Cosby says in an interview with SiriusXM radio host Michael Smerconish that he likely will not testify at the trial.
Getty Images
May 19, 2017
Montgomery County Judges Thomas DeRicci and Steven O'Neill bar all electronic communications from the courthouse, meaning the trial will not be televised and journalists will be barred from live-tweeting.
Getty Images
May 24, 2017
A jury is selected for Cosby's trial. Following Cosby's assertion that race could be a factor in the decision, the jury is made up of four white women, six white men, one black woman and one black man.
After 5 days and 52 hours of deliberations, the 12-person jury is unable to reach a unanimous verdict and a mistrial is declared. Montgomery County D.A. Kevin Steele said he intends to retry Cosby at a later date.
Getty Images
June 22, 2017
Following the mistrial, representatives for Cosby said the comedian had planned a tour for a series of educational "town halls" about sexual assault. “People need to be educated,” said Cosby spokesperson Ebonee Benson. “A brush against the shoulder, anything at this point, can be considered sexual assault.” The plans were quickly met with pushback.
Getty Images
June 26, 2017
A juror from the Cosby mistrial said on "Good Morning America" that Cosby's celebrity and a lack of "substantial evidence" led to the jurors being unable to reach an unanimous verdict over the 52 hours of deliberation. “I think if it was a regular Average Joe, it probably wouldn’t have taken that long,” juror Bobby Dugan said.
Getty Images
June 27, 2017
Cosby pushed back about "false" news reports about his tour. “The current propaganda that I am going to conduct a sexual assault tour is false. Any further information about public plans will be given at the appropriate time," Cosby said in a statement.
Getty Images
June 27, 2017
A trial date of July 30, 2018, was set for Cosby's California civil sexual assault case, in which he was accused of sexually assaulting Judy Huth at the Playboy Mansion in 1974 when she was 15 years old.
Getty Images
Aug. 1, 2017
Bill Cosby’s defense attorney Brian McMonagle quits ahead of the comedian’s second sexual assault trial. No reason was given for McMonagle’s departure.
Getty Images
Jan. 18, 2018
Prosecutors in the Cosby case make a request for 19 of the actor's accusers to testify in court. Prosecutors originally wanted 13 accusers to testify in the original trial, but only one was allowed, with the defense arguing that it would prejudice the jury.
Getty Images
Jan. 26, 2018
Lawyers for Cosby say that the prosecutors failed to disclose and later destroyed evidence related to the case of Temple University worker Andrea Constand, adding that the misconduct was serious enough to warrant a dismissal of the case.
Getty Images
March 12, 2018
Cosby's former TV daughter on "The Cosby Show," Lisa Bonet, says in an interview that though she didn't know about the dozens of sexual misconduct allegations, she "always" sensed some darkness surrounding the comedian. There was just energy,” Bonet says. “And that type of sinister, shadow energy cannot be concealed.”
Getty Images
April 9, 2018
On the first day of Cosby's scheduled retrial, a topless woman charges at Cosby as he enters the Norristown, Pennsylvania, courthouse. The woman was a protestor with "Woman's Lives Matter," and she came within a few feet of Cosby before she was intercepted by sheriff's deputies.
Getty Images
April 10, 2018
Cosby’s defense attorney Tom Mesereau painted Cosby accuser Andrea Constand as a “con artist,” saying she wasn’t attracted to him physically but for his fame and money. The defense added that Constand had changed her story multiple times.
April 12, 2018
Supermodel Janice Dickinson testified that Cosby raped her in Lake Tahoe in 1982. “I wanted to punch him in the face,” Dickinson told the court.
April 18, 2018
Marguerite Jackson, a former fellow employee of Temple University alongside Bill Cosby’s accuser Andrea Constand, was permitted to testify for the defense on Wednesday during the comedian’s retrial, after her testimony was blocked from the original 2017 trial. Jackson claimed she shared a hotel room with Constand, asking her at the time, “‘Did this really happen to you?’ and [Constand] said ‘no, no it didn’t. But I could say it happened, get that money. I could quit my job, go back to school.'”
April 19, 2018
Cosby's defense team made their fifth motion for a mistrial, with Judge Steven T. O'Neill striking down the motion as having “simply no grounds for a mistrial” and being raised too late.
April 25, 2018
Two hours into deliberations, the jury's first question was for a legal definition of consent following an entire day of closing arguments.
April 26, 2018
Cosby is found guilty by the jury in his retrial over accusations made by former Temple University employee Andrea Constand. The jury found him guilty on all three counts of aggravated indecent assault, stemming from former Temple University employee Constand’s accusation that the comedian molested her in 2004 at his home outside of Philadelphia.
September 25, 2018
Cosby is sentenced to three to 10 years in a Pennsylvania prison and declared a "sexually violent predator" whose name will appear on a sex-offender registry sent to neighbors, schools and victims.
1 of 46
A chronology of controversies that have tarnished the legacy of a Hollywood icon
Bill Cosby, once one of Hollywood's most beloved stars, has dramatically fallen from grace since facing multiple accusations of sexual assault and misconduct -- leading to a criminal conviction in 2018 on three counts of aggravated sexual assault. Here's a look back at the scandal.