Lisa Bonet Says Bill Cosby Had a 'Sinister, Shadow Energy' 

Lisa Bonet says that while she wasn’t aware of Bill Cosby’s sexual misconduct while working with him on The Cosby Show, she admits that she always sensed something sinister around him.

In a recent, long-ranging interview with the fashion retail site Net-a-Porter, Bonet opened up about her memories of working with Cosby, essentially stating that she was not surprised by the allegations of sexual misconduct and assault that have landed Cosby in court. Writer Sanjiv Bhattacharya writes:

Have the revelations about Bill Cosby’s alleged sexual misconduct tainted her memory of those years? She looks evenly at me. “No, it’s exactly as I remember it,” she says. But did you have a sense that anything was happening? “There was no knowledge on my part about his specific actions, but… There was just energy. And that type of sinister, shadow energy cannot be concealed.” You sensed a darkness? “Always. And if I had anything more to reveal then it would have happened a long time ago. That’s my nature. The truth will set you free.”

Bonet also talks about how she and Cosby clashed on set, especially regarding her sexuality and the more adult jobs she took outside of the show like posing topless in Interview magazine and performing a sex scene with Mickey Rourke in the film Angel Heart. “I don’t need to say, ‘I told you so’,” she says in the interview. “I just leave all that to karma and justice and what will be.”

In the wake of the allegations against Cosby, several of his former Cosby Show co-stars have defended him, like Keshia Knight Pulliam and Phylicia Rashad. “It’s just a bad situation all around—for him, for his family, the women, their families, the legacy of the show,” Malcolm-Jamal Warner previously said.

But Bonet has mostly remained silent on the issue up until now. Her daughter Zoë Kravitz told reporters in the past that Bonet didn’t like discussing it, telling Allure, “I think she didn’t like hearing that. It bummed her out. Though she didn’t seem incredibly surprised about it. I don’t think she wants to hear about anyone being abused, especially by someone she spent so much time with. It feels shitty.”