Under oath in a hotel – away from the TV cameras and the soapbox where he did his public moralizing – Bill Cosby sketched a very different image of America’s Dad: a philanderer who plied young women with quaaludes, claimed to be adept at reading their unspoken desires and tried to use his wealth to keep “Mrs. Cosby” in the dark.
The portrait comes from Cosby’s own words in a transcript of a 2005-06 deposition taken in Philadelphia. It is the only publicly available testimony he has given in response to accusations he drugged and sexually assaulted dozens of women over four decades. Cosby has denied the allegations, calling the sexual contact consensual.
In his testimony, the comedian told of how he tried to gain women’s trust and make them comfortable by talking about their families, their education and their career aspirations.
He seemed casual about his affairs, describing his relationship with one woman this way: “We had sex and we had dinners and sex and rendezvous.”
Asked how it ended, he said: “Stopped calling for rendezvous.”