Entertainment

Bill Cosby Accuser’s Mom Appeals to Comedian’s Wife

Published

11 years ago

March 10, 2015

In this March 6, 2015 photo, Jennifer Thompson pauses before answering a question during an interview at her family’s home in Spring Hill, Fla. When Thompson’s parents met comedian Bill Cosby in the late 1980s to discuss her modeling and acting career, they felt immediately at ease. However, more than 20 women have stepped forward in recent months to level various accusations against Cosby, ranging from unwanted advances to sexual assault and rape. (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)

TAMARA LUSH, Associated Press

SPRING HILL, Fla. (AP) — When William and Judy Thompson met comedian Bill Cosby in the late 1980s to discuss their teen daughter’s modeling and acting career, they felt immediately at ease.

Cosby and William Thompson both belonged to black fraternities in college. They both had lived in the Washington, D.C.-Maryland area. Both were born in July and both went by Bill as a first name.

Cosby reassured the Thompsons that their then-17-year-old daughter, Jennifer, would be fine living in an apartment with other models as she launched her career. He promised to help the teen, they said.

“We thought we were talking to Dr. Huxtable,” said William Thompson, referring to the comedian’s TV persona in “The Cosby Show.”

Jennifer Thompson now says she fended off unwanted sexual advances from Cosby and once performed a sex act on the comedian. He then gave her $700. That encounter — their final — clouded Jennifer Thompson’s next two decades.

“It basically shattered my faith so that anything that used to look promising to me, I saw it through a different lens,” she said.

Thompson, now 44, and her parents recently spoke to The Associated Press about the encounters with Cosby. They also revealed that three weeks ago, Judy Thompson sent a letter to Cosby’s wife, Camille.

“Mother to mother,” said Judy Thompson. “This letter was written from my heart.”

More than 20 women have stepped forward in recent months to level various accusations against Cosby, ranging from unwanted advances to sexual assault and rape. Additionally, Cosby is being sued by three women for defamation and by another woman who says he molested her when she was 15. Cosby has not been charged with any crime, and neither Cosby’s lawyer nor his spokesman returned calls seeking comment. Cosby’s lawyer, Martin Singer, previously has denied some of the allegations and made no comment on others.

Judy Thompson said she was inspired to pen the letter after she read Camille Cosby’s statement issued in December suggesting that her husband, not the women, is the party being harmed by the women’s allegations.

“None of us will ever want to be in the position of attacking a victim,” Camille Cosby said. “But the question should be asked __ who is the victim?”

Judy Thompson bristled when she read Cosby’s words. She said she watched her daughter go from a sparkling, ambitious teen to a woman “with an inner light extinguished.”

Only recently has Jennifer Thompson emerged from under “the dark cloud,” said Judy Thompson, who included a Psalms prayer in the letter.

“Your husband crossed boundaries that never should have been breached,” she wrote to Camille Cosby. “He shattered her innocence.”

Judy Thompson said she prays daily for the Cosbys and ended the letter by writing, “May you and Bill speak the truth and be afforded peace for your souls.”

It could not be determined whether Camille Cosby received the letter.

Judy Thompson said that it was difficult to find anyone, even a therapist, who would believe her daughter’s story. She didn’t go to police.

“To be so hurt and violated, and then not be believed! Resolution has not been easily forthcoming. We all remained in the shadows of your husband’s sick behavior,” she wrote.

Jennifer Thompson was one 13 so-called “Jane Does” in a 2005 civil suit that was brought by a woman named Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee who claimed Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her in 2004.

Constand later settled out of court and Thompson and the other women did not testify in the case.

Cosby on Monday released a new video message, his first in months. He doesn’t discuss the allegations and in the short video, promoted his Saturday show in Wheeling, West Virginia, the next stop in Cosby’s stand-up comedy tour which has seen more than a dozen shows canceled since the most recent round of allegations arose in November.

“You know I’ll be hilarious,” Cosby said in the video. “Can’t wait.”

He also added a note to the video, which read: “Dear fans, I hope you enjoy my wonderful video message that’s filled with laughter… Hey, hey, hey, I’m far from finished.”

____

Follow Tamara Lush on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tamaralush

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Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

Published

2 days ago

July 5, 2026

Oakland Post

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Arts and Culture

Prescott Circus Theatre Presents Free Summer Performance Series

Now in its 41st year, the Prescott Circus Theatre is a nationally recognized performing arts education program for Oakland youth. The circus offers safe environments that challenge Oakland youth, through circus arts training, to develop the skills and confidence to thrive on stage, in school, and in life.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

Prescott Circus showcase pathways pyramid. Photo courtesy of Prescott Circus.

By Post Staff

The Prescott Circus, Oakland’s longest-running youth circus, is returning this summer with its free shows. Join the Prescott Circus’s young stars as they share their joys and talents through stilt-dancing, tumbling, juggling, and more.

At the heart of this one-hour show, which demonstrates teamwork, pride, and joy, are Oakland Unified School District students ages 8 – 17 from more than 10 different schools

This is accomplished through no-cost school and community programs for more than 300 Oakland youth each year. Performing company members from Prescott, where the program began, perform and make appearances at as many as 40 Bay Area events each year.

The summer program is funded in part by Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, California Arts Council, Port of Oakland, and the West Davis & Bergard Foundation.

Performances will be held Tuesday, July 14, 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. (ASL interpreted) and Wednesday, July 15, 11 a.m., at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. For free reservations go to

https://PrescottCircusSummerShows.eventbrite.com

For group reservations for camps, childcare centers, senior centers, go to www.prescottcircus.org

A community show will be held Saturday, July 18, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., at DeFremery Park,1651 Adeline St., Oakland.

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50 Years Later, ‘Wake Up Everybody!’ Still Resonates During Black Music

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

iStockphoto.

By Hazel Trice Edney, Special to The Post

Hazel Trice Edney

“Wake up, everybody, No more sleepin’ in bed

No more backward thinkin’. Time for thinkin’ ahead

The world has changed so very much from what it used to be.

There is so much hatred, war, and poverty.

“The world won’t get no better If we just let it be.

Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw.

The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah– just you and me.”

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

In a rare, nearly somber moment, the group’s celebrated lead singer, Teddy Pendergrass, introduced the song on Soul Train, the weekly dance and live performance TV show that aired roughly between 1971 and 2006. Pendergrass told the attentive live audience and thousands watching by television that Wake Up Everybody, the title tune of their most recent album, was intended to inspire people to take action with a goal to change America for the better.

“I’m sure that you will all agree that there are things that need to be done in this country today,” he said. “So, what I’d like for you to do is listen very carefully to see what you can do to lend a hand.”

The song’s appeal worked.

“I played that song over and over and over again because it was a constant warning to keep ourselves prepared for the society that we were living in,” says A. Peter Bailey, then a 37-year-old former aide to Malcolm X.

When “Wake Up Everybody” hit the airwaves, Bailey was working as an associate editor of Ebony Magazine. “It was a call to be aware of what we were dealing with in the country that we lived in, the world we lived in, the neighborhood we lived in, the cities that we lived in,” Bailey said in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire.

He concluded that during Black Music Month 2026, such songs should be recalled and celebrated as a key to changes for the good across America; especially because such songs successfully encouraged people to deal with the issues that might otherwise denigrate the promises of America, including the promise that “All men are created equal,”as stated in the Declaration of Independence.

“The rhythms and blues expressed our joys, our sorrows and our fears,” Bailey recalls. “It was those songs and the singing of those songs by our people that attracted us to the campaigns for justice.”

With his life inspired by that song and others, Bailey, now 88, went on to establish and teach a Black Press class at Virginia Commonwealth University. Also, he has since written three books, including a memoir, “Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master Teacher,” in which he expounded upon successful principles of social justice, some of which are reflected in “Wake Up Everybody.”

Long before the term “woke” became associated with campaigns for justice, Pendergrass led the song that reverberated across America and still holds deep meaning.

The ‘wake up’ call exhorts teachers to ‘teach a new way,’ doctors to heal elders, and builders to ‘build a new land… we can do it if we all lend a hand.”

The song concludes:

“The world won’t get no better if we just let it be. Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw. The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah – just you and me.”

Hazel Trice Edney wrote this story as part of a four-part series powered by AARP in commemoration of Black Music Month, June 2026.