Raven-Symoné separates Bill Cosby’s allegations from TV impact
During a recent appearance on the “I hate to tell youIn the podcast, Raven-Symoné says she separates Bill Cosby’s impact on the TV industry from his “horrific” sexual assault allegations.
“Separate the creator from creation,” she said. “And that’s exactly where I live. Creation changed America. Television changed.”
“He has also been accused of some heinous things,” Symoné added. “That is no excuse, but that is his personal situation [life]. So personally, keep that there, and then from a business perspective, also know what he did there. Like you said, both can live, and I think our culture is right to…not do wrong. Personally, don’t do wrong. You just can’t do wrong.”
Symoné appeared as Olivia Kendall alongside Cosby on “The Cosby Show” from 1989 until the show’s end in 1992. Cosby co-created the show in 1984 and starred as Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable. “The Cosby Show” earned six Emmy Awards and aired a total of 197 episodes.
Cosby faced allegations of sexual abuse for the first time back in 2004 by Andrea Constand, but it was not until 2014 that the allegations became public knowledge. In 2014, Barbara Bowman, who testified in support of Constand’s civil suit against Cosby, wrote one op-ed for The Washington Post with the title: “Bill Cosby raped me. Why did it take thirty years for people to believe my story?”
In the years that followed, dozens more women came forward with their own accusations against Cosby. In 2016, he was sentenced to trial in Montgomery County Magisterial District Court for sexual assault. The trial began in June 2017 and ended in a mistrial after twelve days.
Cosby was ultimately convicted in a retrial in 2018 on three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault and sentenced to three to 10 years in prison. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 2021 due to a previous agreement Cosby had with Montgomery County Prosecutor Bruce Castor. The pair agreed that Cosby could not be prosecuted if he gave evidence in Constand’s civil case.
