'Cosby: The Women Speak': 'This Person From Hell Came Into The Room'

The women who attest to the things Bill Cosby did to them in the new A&E documentary Cosby: The Women Speak come from many different professions, and came into contact with him in different decades starting in the 1960s. But all of them carry a similar edge in their voices: a sadness mingled with anger and determination, that it’s taken so long for the word to spread about Cosby’s alleged transgressions, and, for the most part, how good it feels to have solidarity with other victims-turned-avengers.

Cosby: The Women Speak, airing Thursday night, is an intentionally simple production. The women are interviewed individually, sitting in chairs, talking about their experiences. Occasionally a voiceover narration gives the viewer the context for what Cosby’s career was like in the 1960s, ‘70s, ‘80s, 90s, and into the 21st century — decades in which he continued his predatory advances, according to these women. (Cosby himself is not interviewed, although clips of him defending himself or shutting down interviewers on the subject are included.)

There is the occasional familiar face, such as model Beverly Johnson, but many of the women are people who, they say, were so traumatized by their Cosby interactions, they receded into the background of the lives they’d hoped to have — this is one of the great tragedies of this sordid situation.

“All of a sudden, this person from hell came into the room,” says former actress Louisa Moritz, talking about an assault she says took place in a dressing room on the Tonight Show set during the Johnny Carson era, when she was waiting to go on the air in a small role in a sketch.

One interesting theme in this hour is the resentment some women feel that it took a male — comedian Hannibal Buress’s now-famous 2014 Philadelphia performance that included a bit about Cosby-as-rapist — to bring these women’s stories to its most widespread, social-media-fueled attention.
As the hour proceeds, certain details pop up again and again: Cosby luring a woman in under the excuse of an acting lesson, suggesting that as part of the Method Acting theory, she should try to appear drunk, and to help her along, offering her a cappuccino laced with a narcotic. The alleged assaults — forced oral sex; rape — are followed by threats from the comedian to never say what happened.

It’s all very disturbing and creepy. It’s also not new: Nothing in The Women Speak hasn’t been heard before in various media outlets, especially New York Magazine’s July cover story “35 Women Tell Their Stories.” The A&E special might therefore be viewed partly as an attempt to get ratings by recycling already-heard allegations.

On the other hand, there’s also a sense in which we cannot hear these dreadful tales enough, so that the memory of them can live on in people other than the victims.

Cosby: The Women Speak airs Sept. 17 at 9 p.m. ET on A&E.