(Reuters) – Comedian Bill Cosby, in an interview that aired on Saturday, declined to answer questions by a National Public Radio journalist about accusations of sexual assault that resurfaced in recent weeks.
Cosby, 77, responded by shaking his head to signal “No” at least twice when NPR’s Scott Simon asked him to respond to the sexual assault accusations, including those made by former aspiring actress Barbara Bowman in an op-ed in the Washington Post earlier in the week.
Bowman said Cosby had assaulted her on multiple occasions in 1985, when she was 17 years old, including one occasion when he drugged her at his New York City brownstone. Bowman said she never went to the police because she feared she would not be believed.
She said she had prepared to testify in a lawsuit filed by another woman, Andrea Constand, who claimed that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her. That suit was settled in 2006 for an undisclosed amount of money and Bowman never testified.