Lisa Bonet probably won’t be breaking her silence anytime soon about the sexual assault allegations against her former TV dad Bill Cosby. According to her daughter Zoe Kravitz, the Cosby Show alum is keeping her opinion to herself amid the ongoing scandal, which now involves more than 40 alleged victims.
Asked in an interview with the UK’s Guardian whether Bonet, 47, had discussed the allegations with her, the Mad Max: Fury Road star, 26, replied, “She hasn’t, she really hasn’t. She’d plead the fifth, even to me. I think she’s just staying out of it.”
That’s not to say she doesn’t have an opinion, though. “She’s just as disgusted and concerned as everyone else is, but I don’t think she has any insight,” Kravitz added. “It’s news to her as well.”
Bonet starred on The Cosby Show from 1984 to 1991, playing Denise Huxtable (later Denise Kendall), the second-eldest daughter of Cliff (Cosby) and Clair (Phylicia Rashad). She was 17 when she started the series, and 23 when she left.
“She was on the show for a long time. She’s also a beautiful woman. It makes people wonder,” Kravitz (whose dad is Bonet’s ex-husband Lenny Kravitz) acknowledged, alluding to speculation about her mom’s experience with Cosby, and whether she was among his alleged victims. “She’s a very straightforward person. If there was something she felt the world needed to know that would help this case or help any women who had been abused, she would say something.”
As previously reported, Cosby has been accused of sexual assault and harassment by several dozen women, many of whom claim the comedian drugged and raped them in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. Last month, 35 of the alleged victims were featured on a striking New York Magazine cover.
Documents obtained by the Associated Press in July indicate that Cosby admitted to getting quaaludes with the intent of giving them to women he wanted to have sex with, but the actor’s lawyer has said people are “misinterpreting” his words.
“I’m not making conclusions — and you know that I can’t — about whether someone is lying or not,” attorney Monique Pressley told Good Morning America in July. “What I am saying is that Mr. Cosby has denied the accusations that have been lodged thus far. The sheer volume or number of people who are saying a particular thing does not make it true.”
