Bill Cosby’s upcoming town hall tour is not about sexual assault but rather about “restoring his legacy,” his publicist Ebonee Benson told CNN’s Christi Paul.
“When we initially talked about the town hall meetings,” Benson said, “it was about restoration of legacy, much to what Mrs. Cosby spoke on in her statement is the sensationalism brought on by the media. This is another example of that. To take something meant to talk about the restoration of this man’s legacy that was destroyed by the media before he even had a chance to step into the courtroom. That’s what this is about.”
But as Paul noted on Twitter after the interview, Benson’s claims contradict what she and another Cosby publicist, Andrew Wyatt, said in an interview on local Fox affiliate WBRC in Birmingham, AL on Thursday, in which they brought up the upcoming town hall tour unprompted and mentioned sexual assault as an issue that would be discussed when describing it.
#BillCosby publicists toldus @CNN his town hall tours r abt restoring his legacy-that’s not what they said earlier https://t.co/mlntX1aIKO
— Christi Paul (@Christi_Paul) June 25, 2017
“This is bigger than Bill Cosby. You know, this issue can affect any young person, especially young athletes of today,” said Wyatt. “And they need to know what they’re facing when they are hanging out and partying, when they are doing certain things that they shouldn’t be doing. And it also affects, you know, married men.”
“The statute of limitations for victims of sexual assault are being extended,” added Benson. So, this is why people need to be educated on a brush against the shoulder. You know, anything at this point could be considered sexual assault. It’s very — it’s a good thing to be educated about the law.”
Cosby’s criminal sexual assault trial ended in a mistrial on Saturday after the jury spent five days in deliberations and failed to reach a verdict. Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said he intends to retry Cosby on three counts of aggravated sexual assault stemming from a 2014 encounter with former Temple University employee Andrea Constand. If convicted, Cosby could face up to 10 years in prison.
