Judd Apatow: ‘We shouldn't need Bill Cosby to admit it’
Director wonders why we need comedian’s admission to believe alleged victims
Bill Cosby’s admission that he gave Quaaludes to at least one woman he wanted to have sex with — a revelation in a 2005 deposition that was unsealed Monday — is being viewed as a damning corroboration by his many accusers.
But director Judd Apatow, one of the most vocal critics of Cosby in Hollywood, says we shouldn’t need the 77-year-old comedian to admit guilt to believe his alleged victims.
“I don’t think there is anything new here,” Apatow said in a statement to Esquire. “It is only new to people who didn’t believe an enormous amount of women who stated clearly that he drugged them.”
Cosby has been accused of sexual assault by more than two dozen women, including many who say he drugged and raped them in strikingly similar encounters over a four-decade span. Lawyers for Cosby have denied the allegations, and he has never been criminally charged.
“The women have been saying they’ve been drugged and abused, and these documents appear to support the allegations,” Joe Cammarata, a lawyer for one of Cosby’s accusers, told the Associated Press.
Apatow said: “We shouldn’t need Bill Cosby to admit it to believe forty people who were victimized by him. I am sure there are many victims who have not come forward. Maybe now more people in show business and all around our country will stand up and tell the people he attacked that ‘we support you and believe you.’”
He added: “I also hope Camille Cosby and Phylicia Rashad will now stand with the victims, and not with their attacker.”
In an interview with ABC News in January, Rashad, Cosby’s co-star on “The Cosby Show,” said there was been a rush to judgment by the media.
“This is not about the women,” Rashad said. “This is about something else. This is about the obliteration of a legacy.”
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