Cosby victim gives first interview since conviction
Andrea Constand spoke with Dateline NBC about night she was assaulted
PHILADELPHIA— In an interview a month after Bill Cosby was found guilty in the first conviction of the #MeToo era, Andrea Constand says she felt helpless the night the entertainer sexually assaulted her. In a short clip released Thursday previewing an exclusive Dateline interview called “Bringing Down Bill Cosby: Andrea Constand Speaks,” Constand describes the effects of the “three blue pills” that Cosby called her “friends.”
“I took them because I trusted that they would maybe just help me feel a little more relaxed,” Constand told NBC News’ Kate Snow for the show, which airs Friday night.
Constand, who previously hadn’t been able to discuss the events publicly because of ongoing legal action that lasted more than a decade, also de- scribed how she slipped “in and out of consciousness” after taking the pills.
“My mind is saying, ‘Move your hands, kick, can you do anything?’ ” she said.
“‘I don’t want this. Why is this person doing this?’ And me not being able to react in any specific way. So I was limp. I was a limp noodle.
“I was crying out inside, in my throat, in my mind for this to stop and I couldn’t do anything,” she added.
For the special edition of Date- line, Snow also sat down with Constand’s mother, Gianna Constand, as well as four other women who have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct: Janice Baker-Kinney, Lise Lotte Lublin, Heidi Thomas and Chelan Lasha.
Constand accused Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting her in his Cheltenham home in 2004, when she served as the director of operations for Temple University’s women’s basketball team. Dozens of women have ac- cused Cosby of sexual assault, but Constand’s case was the only one to result in criminal charges. A Montgomery County jury found Cosby, 80, guilty on three counts of aggravated indecent assault in late April.
He could face up to three decades in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for this fall.