Nicole Weisensee Egan

I remember Bill Cosby from the beginning. I owned several of his comedy albums when those things were available only as vinyl LPs, and I paid good money to see him perform live when he came to my town. I remember well his huge breakthrough to star in the weekly television series “I Spy” with Robert Culp, a huge achievement for an African American actor of that time. And, of course, I remember the “don’t-miss” series that my own children grew up on in which Cosby portrayed the perfect father and family man the whole country fell in love with. Little did any of us know that just below the surface of one of the most beloved men in America lurked one of the most despicable human beings on the planet. The real Bill Cosby.

For decades, too many powerful people, and too many weak people who depended upon Cosby for a paycheck, consciously and knowingly enabled Cosby to drug, sexually abuse, and rape dozens and dozens of women. Cosby, after all, was a generous man who said all the right things about what was wrong in society – especially what he saw as the self-destructive way that too many African Americans raise (or don’t raise) their children. He gave millions of dollars in support of colleges and charities over his lifetime, and that bought him the benefit of the doubt for way too long. Simply put, Cosby was a black man who achieved tremendous success and wealth, and he singlehandedly did more to change the image of the black family than anyone before him. As such, he was sacred, and no one wanted to see him fall from grace.

But fall, he did – with a thud heard around the world – and Nicole Weisensee Egan’s Chasing Cosby explains exactly how it all happened. Cosby was first tried for his crimes in 2005 in a Philadelphia courtroom, but the resulting mistrial allowed him to walk away a free man. Try as he might to buy off his accusers, though, in 2018 Cosby found himself again having to fight for his freedom. And this time, things would be different: the #MeToo movement was happening and even though the statute of limitations allowed only one of his accusers actually to bring charges against him, sixty-two other women had also gone public with their own stories of nonconsensual drugging, molesting, and rape at the hands of Bill Cosby.

None of what Egan reveals about Cosby’s crimes and how they affected his victims for the rest of their lives is easy to read. Dozens of women suffered, and Cosby, his wife, many in law enforcement, and many in Hollywood could not have cared less. Cosby, the con artist, fooled most of us – but he was protected by others who knew the truth and did nothing to stop him. According to Tommy Lightfoot Garret, a “Hollywood insider,” it was no secret in Hollywood what Cosby was doing and what kind of man he was. Garret claims to have heard the rumors in the 1980s when he first became part of that scene, and he says that, “Everyone who was anyone in Hollywood knew.” But no one wanted to place Cosby, their cash-cow, in danger. How else could he have gotten away with something like this for decades? One of the most disgusting things about Cosby’s defenders is how ready they were to claim that he was simply another victim of racism – that no white celebrity would have been charged with the same crimes under the same circumstances. What they ignored is that approximately one-third of Cosby’s accusers were themselves black women, most of whom struggled with their role in bringing down a black icon like Cosby.

But the creepiest thing pointed out in Chasing Cosby, a point that is seldom brought up, is the utter disregard that Cosby had for the lives of the women he was drugging and raping. He was not concerned that they might die from the drugs he was slipping into their drinks; he did not worry that they might have other health issues or that they might die in an accident on the way home if they managed to get away from him before passing out. Some of these women were unaware of what was happening to them for more than 24 hours – others say they did not feel fully in control of themselves again for as long as four days. It is a miracle (and I hope it’s true) that no one died at Cosby’s hands.

In his defense, the author does point out that Cosby is a man with a mental problem. He openly displayed that by chuckling out loud at his second trial during the prosecution’s defense of the character of his accusers. But Cosby’s problem is deeper than that. He has been legally labeled a “sexually violent predator,” a person with a mental disorder that “makes him likely to repeat his crimes.” As such, he is required to participate in monthly counselling sessions for the rest of his life. He will forever be a registered sex offender.

Chasing Cosby is not an easy book to read. It will make you angry, and it will leave you wondering just who is the guiltiest in a case like this one: the convicted criminal or all those hangers-on who helped him set up his victims.… (meer)