Phylicia Rashad caused quite a stir when she defended her longtime TV husband Bill Cosby during a recent interview. The former Mrs. Huxtable was quoted saying ” Forget these women” when discussing the sexual assault allegations brought against Cosby by over a dozen women. Now she is speaking out again saying that she was misquoted.
“That is not what I said,” she told ABC News. “What I said is, ‘This is not about the women. This is about something else. This is about the obliteration of a legacy. I am a woman. I would never say such a thing.”
Rashad was criticized by lawyer Gloria Allred during a press conference yesterday (Jan.7) where she revealed three new Cosby accusers.
“Phylicia, I vow to you that I will not forget these women, because women matter,” Allred said. “They deserve respect and dignity. Phylicia, you should be supporting these women rather than joining Cosby’s paid ‘attack dogs’ who are trying to undermine them in any way they can.”
[ALSO READ: Phylicia Rashad Speaks Out About Allegations Against Bill Cosby]
The Showbiz 411 editor Roger Friedman, who interviewed Rashad at a luncheon for the movie Selma, wrote a post in hopes to set the record straight about what was said.
“Let me clear something. I did not misquote Phylicia Rashad. But she didn’t mean for it to be taken the way it was, and I should have punctuated. There was NEVER the meaning in ‘Forget those women’ that she was saying to actually forget or dismiss then. She meant, ‘those women aside’ -– as in, she’s not talking about that, she’s talking about Cosby’s legacy being destroyed. It was conversational. Somehow this got twisted. I am really sorry if the way I presented it made it seem like either one of us was forgetting anyone.”
Watch Rashad’s sit down with ABC News below.
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