‘In the court of public opinion, he’s guilty’
American community were reluctant to admit his guilt.”
This is partly why it took Bernard so many years to come forward. She was aware that Cosby, who has been married to wife Camille for 53 years, represented a better way of life for many African-americans and was fearful of being rejected by her own community for speaking out.
In the end, it was her teenage son, Rafael, who persuaded her to go public in 2015. He overheard his parents talking about the abuse, and said: “What? Is this true? Mom, you’ve got to speak out.”
By then, more than 50 women had come forward to accuse the comedian of abuse, including the former models Janice Dickinson and Beverley Johnson, and it was becoming impossible to ignore.
The various alleged crimes, comprising assault and drugging, dated back decades and Bernard was struck by the similarities between these women’s stories and her own.
But it was – and still is – extremely distressing to speak of her experience publicly.
“Girl, it’s difficult!” Bernard says. “It’s nothing that comes easy at all. It’s painful. However, it’s necessary. The more I speak, the more dispassionate I feel. I guess it’s like a purge. I keep speaking out, even though there’s no personal benefit… because I hope to shift rape culture away from misogyny and victim-blaming.”
Bernard cannot pursue legal action, because her alleged assaults took place outside California’s statute of limitation laws for sex-related crimes (in fact, she and a group of Cosby accusers successfully campaigned to overturn the state’s 10-year window for prosecuting sexual assaults, but the change came too late for any of them to benefit directly).
This means that despite the deluge of accusations, Cosby is facing trial on three counts of aggravated indecent sexual assault in 2004 on just one woman, Andrea Constand, a former basketball team manager at Temple University in Philadelphia, Cosby’s alma mater.
Although the prosecution tried to get the evidence of 11 other women heard, the judge has only allowed the testimony of one further witness, whose case is said to bear some similarities to Constand’s.
If found guilty, Cosby could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison, but he vehemently denies the allegations, and Pollack thinks it might be “tricky” for the prosecution to make their case stick.
“Obviously the defence will pick holes in her [Constand’s] story, as with any rape trial,” he says. “But Cosby’s legacy has gone. In terms of how most people see him, he’s seen as a serial rapist. In the court of public opinion, he’s guilty.”
Bernard is now a successful artist, whose work often explores the legacy of trauma on women. In one sense, she has been able to move on from what she says happened to her at the hands of Cosby. But in another, more profound way, she still lives with it.
“A lot of emphasis is put on the raping,” she says, “but the drugging is traumatic too. You’re lying there, losing function in your legs, arms, and you think, ‘Is it my heart next?’”
When she has bad dreams, it’s the drugging she remembers. In her nightmares, she is always stuck, unable to move, panic rising.
Has Bernard thought about how she will feel if Cosby is acquitted? “It will be a travesty,” she says, then falls silent.
‘Cosby’s legacy has gone. In terms of how most people see him, he’s a serial rapist’