After more than two years, Bill Cosby broke his silence and revealed in an interview that he is now totally blind.
In an exclusive interview with NNPA Newswire, Cosby said that about two years ago, he woke up one morning and told his wife, Camille, “I can’t see.” According to the story, doctors have confirmed the statement, saying that there was nothing they could to repair Cosby’s vision.
“When he would perform, we’d draw a wide straight yellow line from backstage to the chair on the stage and he’d rehearse the walk, hours before the show,” Andrew Wyatt, one of Cosby’s spokespeople from public relations firm Purpose, told NNPA.
Cosby hasn’t given up on his career and misses the stage
In the interview, Cosby said that he misses performing and that he’s looking forward to the next phase in his career.
“I miss it all and I hope that day will come. I have some routines and storytelling that I am working on,” he said. “I think about walking out onstage somewhere in the United States of America and sitting down in a chair and giving the performance that will be the beginning of the next chapter of my career.”
The 79-year-old embattled comedian stopped performing in December 2015, after he was charged with drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee in his Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, mansion in January 2004. Cosby claimed the encounter was consensual, according to USA Today.
However, more than 50 other women have accused him of similar claims. The comedian has denied every allegation and has pleaded not guilty. He is set to go on trial on June 5. Jury selection begins in Pittsburgh on May 22.
Cosby’s youngest daughter shared an essay defending him
Although Cosby didn’t speak about the sexual assault accusations during the interview, his youngest daughter, Evin Cosby, released a passionate statement Wednesday defending him. The essay was also published in NNPA.
“He is not abusive, violent or a rapist,” she wrote. “Sure, like many celebrities tempted by opportunity, he had his affairs, but that was between him and my mother. They have worked through it and moved on, and I am glad they did for them and for our family.”
The 40-year-old also talks about her loving childhood, and about how his father has not been treated fairly by the public and by the media, while she considers that her dad “broke barriers and raised the conscious of America on important topics, especially for the advancement of women.”
Evin also writes that accusations against her family have done a lot of damage to his family, people that work with him and friends who defend him. “The public persecution of my dad, my kids’ grandfather, and the cruelty of the media and those who speak out branding my father a ‘rapist’ without ever knowing the truth and who shame our family, and our friends for defending my dad makes all of this so much worse for my family and my children,” she wrote. “They have punished the talented people who were still earning money and feeding their families from my dad’s shows and work.”
She referenced some of the accusations, as well as the murder of her 28-year-old brother, Ennis, in January 1997, mentioning that “that was the worst nightmare of all time,” and his father’s case has only made it worse.