Supermodel, actress, and mogul, Beverly Johnson gives her story. As the first African American woman to cover American Vogue in 1974, the last thing she wanted to do was defame another well respected African American figure. However, with the various rape reports about Bill Cosby over the decades the time has come. The black lady is singing. Now, Beverly tells-all to Vanity Fair.
[Picture Source: Complex.com]Beverly Johnson in the mid 80’s (who at the time in the mid 80’s was going through a horrible custody battle with her ex-husband over her daughter) was excited to find that Bill Cosby wanted her to audition for a small role on The Cosby Show. Landing this role could have been the start to her escape. After being invited and attending a taping of the show, Beverly Johnson and Bill Cosby met and she informed him of the madness going on in her marriage, at the time. A concerned Cosby, expressed wanting to help guide her career further. Knowing that she’d have her daughter on the weekends, he invited her to bring her along to read for the part which would be at his New York brownstone. Upon arrival, his staff gave Beverly and her daughter a tour and served a delicious brunch. Johnson described Cosby as the “Jell-O Pudding man” and her daughter loved him, too.
[Photo Source: BeverlyJohnson.com]
The first visit to Cosby’s home made Beverly completely comfortable with him which seemingly was step one. He invited her a few days later to read for the part. She agreed. One late afternoon, she went, they had dinner and headed upstairs to a living area where there was a huge bar. It featured a major espresso machine. Cosby wanted to see how she would act in different manners so he asked that she play drunk. As she prepared to act drunk, he offered her a cappuccino for the espresso machine. She told him she doesn’t drink coffee late in the afternoon because she wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. He wouldn’t stop. Beverly herself, didn’t feel comfortable arguing with thee Bill Cosby so she took a few sips and by the second sip she was sure she had been drugged. “And drugged good”, she said. “My head became woozy, my speech became slurred, and the room began to spin nonstop”, she writes in Vanity Fair.
He motioned for her to come over to him as if they were really going to act out the scene. She went. He put his hands around her waist. She put her hand on his shoulder. Then she transformed. She calls it, “automatic-survival mode”, where she’d make sure Cosby knew that she knew exactly what was happening. She began call him different types of “motherfuckers”. He pulled her down a bunch of stairs and out to the street to catch a taxi.
She made it home. She fell into a deep sleep that lasted most of the day. Like many of the other women, Beverly wondered if she was partially to blame. Had she given Bill Cosby any reason? In her right mind she knew she hadn’t.
Beverly back in California, decided to call with faith that he’d come clean and give reason. However, his wife answered and told her that it was 11PM and too late for such a call. Beverly apologized and said she’d call back the next day. She didn’t. She never called again. She never told her story either. Fearful that her career would suffer for telling such a story, she kept it to herself.
[Photo Source: Dailycaller.com]
Bill Cosby was a man admired by many for possessing admirable qualities and characteristics that many don’t expect from African American men. He was the only father some of us ever had besides Uncle Phil.
Who would ever think he’d be a serial rapist? Luring females in by promising to further their careers, drugging them, and trying to take advantage of them? Cosby fathers four daughters. Can you imagine?
