R&B singer Jill Scott is changing her tune on Bill Cosby.
Scott was one of the embattled comedian’s most prominent defenders when allegations of sexual assault against him resurfaced late last year. “I’m respecting a man who has done more for the image of Brown people that almost anyone EVER. From Fat Albert to the Huxtables,” she tweeted in December.
Now that newly unsealed testimony from 2005 has revealed that Cosby admitted to purchasing Quaaludes legally in the 1970s for the purposes of seducing young women he wanted to have sex with, Scott has retracted her support for the comedy icon.
RELATED: From the archives: Cosby controversy
“About Bill Cosby. Sadly his own testimony offers PROOF of his terrible deeds, which is all I have ever required to believe the accusations,” she tweeted late on Monday. “I stood by a man I respected and loved. I was wrong. It HURTS!!!,” she added.
Cosby has never been charged with a crime and denies the allegations of the numerous women who have come forward to accuse him. He is currently fighting to have a defamation suit brought by his accusers thrown out of court. His lawyers had opposed the release of the 2005 court documents, calling them “terribly embarrassing.” NBC News has reached out to Cosby’s Philadelphia-based attorney but has not heard back at this time.
Meanwhile, some of Cosby’s other celebrity defenders have yet to come forward to address the revelations from the past 24 hours, or have stood by their initial comments. Actress Whoopi Goldberg, who has defending Cosby on her TV show “The View” in the past, told viewers Tuesday, “As more information comes out, people can make judgments. I don’t like snap judgments.”
“Save your texts; save your nasty comments. I don’t care. I say this because this is my opinion, and in America, still, I know it’s a shock, but you are still innocent until proven guilty,” she continued. “He has not been proven a rapist.”
Reasoning with the angry & unreasonable? No. I'm not sorry for standing by my mentor. I'm sorry the accusations Rtrue pic.twitter.com/8oHD9u12em
— ⭐Jill Scott⭐ (@missjillscott) July 7, 2015Former “Cosby Show” star Raven-Symoné, who was also on “The View” panel on Tuesday said: “He gave me my first job. But at the same time you need the proof and I’ll be able to give my judgment here or there.”
Hollywood director Judd Apatow, who has been consistently one of Cosby’s biggest celebrity critics since the scandal began, has called on the comedian’s former co-star Phylicia Rashad and wife Camille Cosby to address the latest developments. Both have steadfastly stood by the 77-year-old performer in public.
“I don’t think there is anything new here. It is only new to people who didn’t believe an enormous amount of women who stated clearly that he drugged them,” Apatow told Esquire magazine in an interview published Monday. “We shouldn’t need Bill Cosby to admit it to believe 40 people who were victimized by him.
RELATED: Bill Cosby said he gave Quaaludes to woman before sex: Court documents
Cosby does appear to have the support of many fans who attended his “Far From Finished” stand-up comedy tour earlier this year. Still, his performances were frequently greeted with protests, and several planned projects Cosby was set to star in have either been shelved indefinitely or canceled in the wake of the controversy.
Although Cosby himself has said little publicly about the allegations, which have done potentially irrevocable damage to his image, he said in a May interview on “Good Morning America”: “I have been in this business 52 years and I’ve never seen anything like this.”
U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno wrote in a 25-page memorandum obtained by NBC News that he unsealed Cosby’s testimony in part because the comedian had “donned the mantle of public moralist and mounted the proverbial electronic or print soap box to volunteer his views on, among other things, childrearing, family life, education, and crime.”
Adam Howard