“Today” co-host Kathy Lee Gifford has defended actor Bill Cosby in recent weeks as woman after woman came forward to accuse him of sexual assault.
But on Tuesday morning, Gifford added a disclaimer of sorts to her defense of the comedian, who she and her back-up singers opened for while he toured in the 1970s.
Gifford and her co-host Hoda Kotb were discussing a statement Cosby’s wife Camille issued Monday. Camille Cosby broke her silence on the mounting sexual assault allegations against her husband by invoking the unraveling of Rolling Stone’s article on an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia to accuse the media of repeating women’s claims without vetting them.
“I will admit, towards the very end of the last time I saw him he did try to kiss me,” Gifford said on “Today.” “I said, ‘Bill, no, we’re friends,’ and he said, ‘OK, goodnight,’ and I said, ‘Goodnight.’ And I went into my room, he went into his room. So I’m not saying the women’s allegations are not true, I’m just saying I never personally saw it with my own two eyes.”
Gifford added that model Beverly Johnson’s allegation that Cosby slipped something into her drink at his home in the 1980s had given her pause.
“I do know that I got a chill, because every night when we’d come off stage and Bill would be going onstage, he would have made cappuccinos for all three of us,” she said. “And I always thought it was such a kindness and so sweet. And now you see Beverly Johnson saying that he made a cappuccino or something for her, and I just don’t want it to be true.”
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