Lisa Bonet breaks silence on Bill Cosby allegations, says he had a 'sinister' energy
Lisa Bonet is speaking out about the allegations of sexual assault against Bill Cosby.
Bonet — who rose to fame at age 16 as Denise Huxtable on The Cosby Show and then appeared on its spin-off show, A Different World — has stayed relatively silent in the wake of the scandal. Over 50 women have come forward, accusing the once-beloved comedian of drugging and/or sexually assaulting them. (Cosby has denied all wrongdoing.)
When speaking with Porter Edit, the 50-year-old actress was asked if the revelations about his alleged misconduct tainted her memory of those years. “No, it’s exactly as I remember it,” she says. However, Bonet always sensed bad energy from Cosby, who is now 80.
“There was no knowledge on my part about his specific actions, but … there was just energy,” she says. “And that type of sinister, shadow energy cannot be concealed.”
Bonet adds that she “always” sensed a darkness. “And if I had anything more to reveal then it would have happened a long time ago,” she states. “That’s my nature. The truth will set you free.”
This is the first time we’ve heard Bonet address the allegations firsthand. In 2015, her daughter, Zoë Kravitz, said Bonet tends to keep quiet regarding the scandal.
“She hasn’t, she really hasn’t [talked],” Kravitz told the Guardian. “She’d plead the fifth, even to me. I think she’s just staying out of it. She’s just as disgusted and concerned as everyone else is, but I don’t think she has any insight. It’s news to her as well.”
There’s not a lot of love lost between Cosby and Bonet. The actor took it upon himself to dis his TV daughter and her career moves. He opposed her role in 1987’s Angel Heart, in which she performed a nude sex scene with Mickey Rourke. He said he wouldn’t see it, insisting, “That film doesn’t offer my appetite anything.”
Bonet promoted the film by appearing nude on the cover of Interview magazine. When Cosby was asked about it, he said he’d heard negative comments from several people about the image. Awkwardly, he added, “I just took it nice and easy and then one day I saw it on the newsstand and I bought the magazine. I looked at that picture and I said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with it.’ It wasn’t anything gross.”
Bonet returned to Cosby in 1988, but she was later fired for “creative differences” and was not invited to appear in the finale.
“I don’t need to say, ‘I told you so,’” Bonet concludes to Porter Edit about Cosby’s current situation. “I just leave all that to karma and justice and what will be.”
Cosby’s retrial for the 2004 alleged sexual assault of Andrea Constand is set to begin April 2 in Philadelphia.
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