Speaker 1: Last time on Navigating Narcissism, I sat down with Lily Bernard,
Speaker 1: who shared never before heard details of her harrowing encounters
Speaker 1: with Bill Cosby.
Speaker 2: There were three druggings and three sexual assaults, and in
Speaker 2: the first one, the betrayal was so profound that was
Speaker 2: an Atlantic city and just made absolutely no sense that
Speaker 2: I was actually able to block it out. I had
Speaker 2: a huge confrontation with him. We were yelling at each
Speaker 2: other in his brownstone. He was telling me that he
Speaker 2: would erase me, and I interpreted that that he would
Speaker 2: kill me.
Speaker 1: This podcast should not be used as a substitute for
Speaker 1: medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek
Speaker 1: independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare
Speaker 1: professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
Speaker 1: or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This
Speaker 1: episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering to some people.
Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the
Speaker 1: podcast author or individuals participating in this podcast, and do
Speaker 1: not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: or their employees. Here is part two of our conversation.
Speaker 2: When Bill Cosby drugged me and raped me in Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: I still didn't understand that he had drugged me. Oh,
Speaker 2: I just thought that he accidentally made me drink a
Speaker 2: whole glass of champagne.
Speaker 1: Ah yeah.
Speaker 2: And so afterwards I went back to the studios and
Speaker 2: I confronted him about it. I was like, mister c
Speaker 2: was I drunk? And I still couldn't say the word
Speaker 2: did you rape me? I couldn't say that because still
Speaker 2: in my mind I didn't want to think that he
Speaker 2: would have done that. But I confronted him, did you
Speaker 2: give me the wrong glass? And I was hoping that
Speaker 2: when I confronted him like that that he would say, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and I raped you. Of course he didn't say that,
Speaker 2: but so him not mentioning for me was like fine,
Speaker 2: that it didn't happen. You know, I knew that I
Speaker 2: was drugged and rape by Bill Cosby. I told my
Speaker 2: agent at the time that it happened. I told my
Speaker 2: best friend, I told therapists at the time. It was
Speaker 2: very easy for me to remember Las Vegas that last
Speaker 2: time in the apartment, but I kept blocking out Atlantic City.
Speaker 2: So back in nineteen ninety two, from the trauma of
Speaker 2: the cosby drugging and rape. I was very suicidal and
Speaker 2: I was hospitalized a lot. And then again in twenty
Speaker 2: fourteen when this resurgence happened, when Hannibal Buris inspired so
Speaker 2: many survivors to come forward, the same thing happened to me.
Speaker 2: I went through a crisis of PTSD crisis. This is
Speaker 2: December or November twenty fourteen. I'm in the psych word
Speaker 2: with this Russian psychiatrist and he's asking me questions. And
Speaker 2: as he was talking to me, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: right there in front of him, all that Atlantic City
Speaker 2: trauma just came fulllooding into my hand. I started sobbing.
Speaker 2: It's just amazing how a brain can do block memories
Speaker 2: in order to function.
Speaker 1: In order to function, it's a protection our trauma system.
Speaker 1: Strangely enough, as much as they impair us and throw
Speaker 1: us off, they're meant to be protective systems. That protection
Speaker 1: is walling stuff off. So the moment it floods out
Speaker 1: of us, it's a tidal wave. It's an absolute tidle wave,
Speaker 1: and it overwhelms us. But you don't know what the
Speaker 1: event is that will pull it out. In this case,
Speaker 1: it was talking to this particular psychiatrist. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not lost on me, Lily, that Atlantic City was so buried.
Speaker 1: It was the first event. At this point, he was
Speaker 1: still very firmly a safe person in your life, other
Speaker 1: than the moment in his brownstone where he had grabbed
Speaker 1: your breast and your gas slighting. There was actually quite
Speaker 1: fascinating because and this speaks to all the things that
Speaker 1: even happened in childhood to you. You touched my breast, No,
Speaker 1: you didn't, back and forth, back and forth. So he's
Speaker 1: denying it happened. And then what happens is you're the
Speaker 1: one who's saying, what is wrong with me? That's the
Speaker 1: gas slighted piece. But you were doing it to yourself,
Speaker 1: which is not uncommon in people who have survived many
Speaker 1: years of trauma, especially in systems like families as well.
Speaker 2: I was taught to do that, Romney. My father was
Speaker 2: an upstanding man, engineer, former professor of mathematics, a beloved individual,
Speaker 2: and so when he did stuff to me, it just
Speaker 2: didn't happen, you know, like we weren't abused my whole life,
Speaker 2: doctor Romeney. I carried that lie to protect my father.
Speaker 2: It's really weird, as the victim of violence to know
Speaker 2: that this is happening to you, but the people who
Speaker 2: do it and whom you regard highly are telling you
Speaker 2: it didn't happen, so it mustn't happen. So it makes
Speaker 2: your reality really confused. They're telling me it didn't happen,
Speaker 2: but I know it happened. But I'm gonna get my
Speaker 2: ass whooped if it does happen. So I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: say it didn't happen. You're right, okay, m hm, okay,
Speaker 2: mom bop, Okay.
Speaker 1: Bill Cosby, it didn't happen.
Speaker 2: It didn't happen, okay, because it makes things easier.
Speaker 1: That betrayal blindness. It does make things easier because and the
Speaker 1: relationships can maintain the status quo, and he can remain
Speaker 1: this icon right, all the things that almost make life easier.
Speaker 1: But you now are carrying it all on your back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and as a black woman, it's a whole added
Speaker 2: burden because not only like it was embarrassing and shameful
Speaker 2: to me that I went through all that with Bill Cosby,
Speaker 2: but then also like I can't let the world know
Speaker 2: that Bill Cosby's really liked that, because what's that going
Speaker 2: to do for the black mail image. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 2: there were other black celebrities who were who were mentoring
Speaker 2: me concurrently. While Bill Cosby was mentioned me, Spike Lee,
Speaker 2: Eric LaSalle, Ving Raims. I would go to their homes
Speaker 2: with them. They would help me on my lines for
Speaker 2: a place that I was in for my audition. Not
Speaker 2: once did it ever cross the line of professionalism. Not once.
Speaker 2: So this was an anomaly. But I felt like it
Speaker 2: was really huge that the most lauded, the most revered,
Speaker 2: the most beloved Black male in the world at that
Speaker 2: time is a monster.
Speaker 1: What did that pressure feel like to you? Because that
Speaker 1: is pressure. This isn't even just about someone who's an
Speaker 1: entertainment icon. This is the experience of a large swath
Speaker 1: of the population who has been waiting for this moment
Speaker 1: for the media to regard black excellence rather than black pathology.
Speaker 1: Like this was more than just Bill Cosby. You felt
Speaker 1: the responsibility of your race. How did you manage that?
Speaker 2: It's hard and it still is hard. Yeah, I get
Speaker 2: attacked still by black men, unfortunately kind of a black woman.
Speaker 2: Are you bringing Bill Cosby down? He's an old man.
Speaker 2: Let him rest. It's the past. All these lies that
Speaker 2: are perpetuated. Why'd you go back to Barbara Zivi is
Speaker 2: psychiatrists whom they bought on both in the Cosby trials
Speaker 2: and in the Winstin trials. As an expert witness, really
Speaker 2: edified the jury to understand that over eighty something percent
Speaker 2: of rapes occur through intimate relationships with people whom we trust.
Speaker 2: Whether it's a mentor like Bill Cosby was to me,
Speaker 2: or an uncle or a priest, or a boy Scout teacher, whatever, colleague.
Speaker 1: These are familiar relationships that idea of somebody jumping out
Speaker 1: of the bushes is so much less likely, right, And
Speaker 1: this idea, if a person ever has further contact with
Speaker 1: that person, it's as though, well then they didn't, right,
Speaker 1: because you went and talked to them again, which is
Speaker 1: absolutely ridiculous. So you're in this trauma. It's happened multiple times.
Speaker 1: You've now even said I'm going to confront you, and
Speaker 1: he did something that perpetrators do all the time. You
Speaker 1: say anything, I'm going to destroy you. That's right, it's
Speaker 1: the silencing, many people say. Obviously the assault was traumatic,
Speaker 1: but the menace that would follow weeks, months, years, that
Speaker 1: was almost worse because you had to carry this within
Speaker 1: you and even wonder who is he going to do
Speaker 1: it to next.
Speaker 2: I had already told my agent, and my agent was
Speaker 2: confrontational about it. Nancy Brown. She kept trying to tell me,
Speaker 2: go to the police, Go to the police. We have
Speaker 2: to go to the police. I said, no, Nancy, we
Speaker 2: can't because he threatened some very serious consequences to me.
Speaker 2: I don't want him to ruin your career. I don't
Speaker 2: want to kill you. We cannot do it. And she
Speaker 2: kept trying to convince me, trying to convince me, and
Speaker 2: then she called me and said, hey, you're on. You
Speaker 2: know they made that.
Speaker 1: Role for you.
Speaker 2: You're gonna work. So I figured that he probably kept
Speaker 2: his word about the job because I was so confrontational
Speaker 2: about it. Maybe he feared that I would go to
Speaker 2: the police. Maybe he went ahead and gave me that
Speaker 2: job to silence me. I don't know. But that week,
Speaker 2: the way the Cosby Show was taped is a tape
Speaker 2: on a Thursday, right, and we were arguing that whole
Speaker 2: week on set. I was confronting him about what had happened.
Speaker 2: He was making me have every meal with him in
Speaker 2: his dressing room, like sequestering me. My boyfriend at the
Speaker 2: time was with me on set every day, and he
Speaker 2: was very abusive to me during his stage directions. So
Speaker 2: when I had to say a line, like if he
Speaker 2: wanted me to say milk, he'd make me hit the note.
Speaker 2: He'd say, no, say milk. And now I'm a trained
Speaker 2: you know that, you know micromanage, you know a little notes,
Speaker 2: and so I'd say milk. He said no, but not
Speaker 2: I said milk, and he would insult me. And then
Speaker 2: finally at the end of the dresser her so it
Speaker 2: was time to go, and he said it's a rap
Speaker 2: and everybody, all the crew started like wrapping up their
Speaker 2: wires and I start heading out. He's going, no, Bernard,
Speaker 2: we're not done. You're not through yet. You're not hitting
Speaker 2: that right note. You're coming to my house and we're
Speaker 2: going to continue rehearsing. Yeah, And I was like, I'm
Speaker 2: not coming to your house, mister C. He's like, yes
Speaker 2: you are. He's like, I'm not coming to your house,
Speaker 2: mister C. So now so now he starts to have
Speaker 2: like he was. He was racheful on set. Sometimes he
Speaker 2: would explose in these rages. Interesting, So now everyone, all
Speaker 2: the crew is starting to get red faced. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm not going. He says, you're going to my house. Bernard.
Speaker 2: I'm like, i am not. He's like, why not? It's
Speaker 2: because you know what happened last time I went to
Speaker 2: your house, mister. See, I'm not going again. So he
Speaker 2: starts yelling at me, and in front of everybody, he cused,
Speaker 2: this ain't about me trying to fuck you. Bernard. I
Speaker 2: already hit that you ain't shit, You're ass ain't shit.
Speaker 2: You're going to my studio right now. So I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm not. He's like, well, if you don't go, you're fired.
Speaker 2: So he said you're fired, Bernard. This is the day
Speaker 2: before we're before we're supposed to tape. So he stormed
Speaker 2: into his dressing room. I store them out after him,
Speaker 2: and we're yelling and screaming. And I was so traumatized
Speaker 2: during that whole that whole week, and I want to say, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is these are details that are embarrassing to talk about. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm just gonna let it all out. We
Speaker 2: were arguing and he was still saying, you're fired, You're fire.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, okay, well, the only way I'll go
Speaker 2: to your house. So still this now, still me, knowing
Speaker 2: that I had been raised, I'm still going to take
Speaker 2: the risk to go to his house, right, So I said,
Speaker 2: is if I call my boyfriend and let him know
Speaker 2: where I am because he had met him. So he's
Speaker 2: like fine. So he gives me the phone and we're
Speaker 2: in his in his dressing room, and I call Franklin
Speaker 2: is his name? I have to go. Mister C says
Speaker 2: that if I don't go to his house and continue rehearsing,
Speaker 2: I'm fired. He's like, don't go, don't go. I never
Speaker 2: told the details to my boyfriend about what happened, but
Speaker 2: I told him he was a leech. I told him,
Speaker 2: I told that he did some inappropriate things, but never
Speaker 2: told me the details. Don't go, don't go. So I
Speaker 2: was like, well, here's the phone number, call me when
Speaker 2: i'm there. So Cosby sends a car to his brownstone
Speaker 2: and when I get there, only his butler is there.
Speaker 2: And I'm sitting at the table and I have the
Speaker 2: script and there's cake and a drink, and I'm just
Speaker 2: waiting and waiting, like, oh my god, I have to rehearse,
Speaker 2: and this is I'm not gonna drink anything. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna eat anything, but I worked so hard for this role.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do it. So Cosby comes in a few
Speaker 2: moments later. He sits down at the table and he's like,
Speaker 2: eat Bernard, I'm not eating anything, mister C. Is it drink?
Speaker 2: I'm not drinking anything. Are we gonna rehearse or not?
Speaker 2: So the phone rings and it was my boyfriend in
Speaker 2: the kitchen, So mister C goes into the kitchen to
Speaker 2: take the call. He sits back down and I'm like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: are we gonna rehearse? So we open the things and
Speaker 2: we start rehearsing. He's like this, literally like this reading
Speaker 2: the life like this, blah blah blah blah. And I'm
Speaker 2: looking at him like this, and I'm like, am I
Speaker 2: doing this or not? He's like, blah blah blah, you're
Speaker 2: fire burner. I get your ass out of here. So
Speaker 2: I leave like that. I go home safe. I didn't
Speaker 2: eat anything, I didn't consume anything. And I'm like, I'm fired.
Speaker 2: I can't believe this. And I just went home and
Speaker 2: I cried, and I spent the whole night just crying.
Speaker 2: I wake up in the morning to a phone call
Speaker 2: and the car's outside waiting for me to do the job.
Speaker 2: So that's how I went into it. Crazy. But you
Speaker 2: see that even in my mind, I felt that I
Speaker 2: still want it. Like a dummy, I still went to
Speaker 2: his house.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna call you out on that, Lily. You
Speaker 1: were not a dummy. Okay, that's how people view it.
Speaker 1: You call yourself a dummy. Other people call you a dummy.
Speaker 1: You weren't a dummy. You were a person who experienced trauma.
Speaker 1: You your brain, all of it was confused. You endured
Speaker 1: trauma as a child, and on top of that, you
Speaker 1: had spent your entire adult life developing a craft to
Speaker 1: be an actor, and you wanted to do this. How
Speaker 1: much of a damn life is someone that has to
Speaker 1: keep sacrificing. How many women's careers in media and entertainment
Speaker 1: have been destroyed. So you said, I don't even know
Speaker 1: what to do. I don't know which way is up.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm responsible. You were not a dummy.
Speaker 1: You went in there because you had been through trauma
Speaker 1: and simultaneously you were still trying to survive to preserve
Speaker 1: yourself as an artist. There was nothing dumb about that.
Speaker 1: You went back in there, and you held your ground.
Speaker 1: I'm not drinking, I'm not eating.
Speaker 2: I did all right, I'm going to didn't drug narrate me.
Speaker 1: That no, And I made to tell my boyfriend I'm
Speaker 1: gonna let people know. I'm going to have a plan
Speaker 1: in place. And then on that day, you were no
Speaker 1: longer an appealing target anymore. Done tell me more about that,
Speaker 1: because you wouldn't drink, you wouldn't eat, you couldn't be broken.
Speaker 1: You see the anger that was coming out up till that.
Speaker 1: It was like, let's celebrate you, Bernard, Let's have a drink, Bernard,
Speaker 1: Let's celebrate your career, Bernard. That was all that right. Well,
Speaker 1: then mister rage is in the house because there's no
Speaker 1: more overpowering you, right, because that's what perpetrators are. That's
Speaker 1: what these malignant narcissistic types do. They cannot fully subjugate you,
Speaker 1: own you. They don't want anything to do with it.
Speaker 2: Fool you, fool if it wasn't fooled anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you weren't fooled anymore.
Speaker 2: But I still put myself in that dangerous position.
Speaker 1: I understand that, I understand that I wouldn't get hurt,
Speaker 1: but that's still the trauma. I think that that's the
Speaker 1: piece that people forget, and you know it to this day,
Speaker 1: all of us who are trauma survivors, we still find
Speaker 1: ourselves in these positions and even afterwards just saying why
Speaker 1: did I do that? But what we have to break
Speaker 1: out of is that that's not dumb. That is how
Speaker 1: nervous system working the way it does. But unfortunately the
Speaker 1: narrative is then, well you went back that time, right
Speaker 1: and work in this show. We're killing that damn narrative.
Speaker 2: I was used to being treated back to Yeah, I
Speaker 2: like my sense of self worth was so low, Like
Speaker 2: to me, that was all normal. Violence was normal to me, Like,
Speaker 2: this is my lot in life. Men whom I love
Speaker 2: are just going to treat me like shit and I
Speaker 2: have to navigate that right, right, So try to make
Speaker 2: the best out of it, you know.
Speaker 1: Try to make the best out of it. And what's
Speaker 1: also striking to me, Lily, I don't even know what
Speaker 1: you were channeling to be able to do this, To
Speaker 1: have gone through three incidents of abuse, the amount of
Speaker 1: fear that was involved, the amount of vigilance, of anxiety
Speaker 1: of being on edge, to deal with all of that, terror,
Speaker 1: and I still have to show up and be a
Speaker 1: performer and actually play a role. How did you do that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just as part of my life, you know.
Speaker 2: Like there was this one time when I was in
Speaker 2: fifth grade and my dad beat the crap out of
Speaker 2: me so badly with the belt that I had these
Speaker 2: you shaped bruises all in my legs, right, and so
Speaker 2: I had to like lie to myself basically that everything
Speaker 2: is okay and normal. And I remember being in the
Speaker 2: girl's locker room and terrified to take off my pants
Speaker 2: and wear the shorts because the kids are going to
Speaker 2: know that I'm being abused at home and I want
Speaker 2: to be normal. They ended up sending me to the
Speaker 2: principal's office, and the principal called my mom. You know,
Speaker 2: they saw all these bruises, and the Principal's like, what
Speaker 2: happened to you? And I was like, I knew what happened,
Speaker 2: but I said, oh, my pony kicked me. And when
Speaker 2: I got home, my mom's like, why did you lie
Speaker 2: to the principle that you had a pony? You don't
Speaker 2: have a pony. And I couldn't even tell my mom, Well,
Speaker 2: what else was I was supposed to tell her about
Speaker 2: all these bruises, you see, So we kind of lie
Speaker 2: to ourselves, yeah, to normalize it and to like destigmatize
Speaker 2: ourself because I don't want anybody to know that Bill
Speaker 2: Cosby drugged me, and I don't want anybody to know
Speaker 2: that I was so vulnerable that I trusted him and
Speaker 2: I ended up being drugged and sexually assaulted by him
Speaker 2: three times. What a dummy, you know, Like, how could
Speaker 2: I let that happen?
Speaker 1: You know, let that happen, right, let that happen. I'm
Speaker 1: a dummy. The survivorship shame is huge, and it's real
Speaker 1: when you were talking about the pony kicked me bruises.
Speaker 1: How much the traumatized child is invested in looking normal
Speaker 1: to the world, right. The fantasy for the traumatized child
Speaker 1: is my family is normal, We're happy like other families.
Speaker 1: No one is harming anyone. And Judith Hermann's work on
Speaker 1: trauma really gets at this idea. How much the traumatized
Speaker 1: child has to become this almost like an expert storyteller
Speaker 1: who writes the justifications. And then the child in all
Speaker 1: of this is the bad one. The child is the
Speaker 1: one doing things. The child is clumsy, the child is
Speaker 1: getting in the way, the child is listening. That's how
Speaker 1: they internalize it, because the alternative is to believe that
Speaker 1: the parent is a monster.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's a really important thing, because that's exactly I
Speaker 2: didn't realize that You've helped me and my siblings understand
Speaker 2: a lot about why we behave the way we do.
Speaker 2: But in retrospect now, when I look back, the last
Speaker 2: contact I had with him was actually on my birthday,
Speaker 2: February of nineteen ninety two. This is after the three
Speaker 2: drugging assaults happened. I went back to the offices. He
Speaker 2: was in his dressing room with some celebrities, and I
Speaker 2: went there because I had picked up a letter of recommendation.
Speaker 2: After I did all my acting gigs, I always got
Speaker 2: letters of recommendations, like any professional would. I'm still thinking, Okay,
Speaker 2: I had that trauma, but okay, I'm still a professional.
Speaker 2: He told me I was gonna be in the different world.
Speaker 2: You know. He was sitting on a couch with these celebrities,
Speaker 2: and I said, I'm getting ready to go to you know,
Speaker 2: to LA for pilot season. Are you going to introduce
Speaker 2: me to the people in different world? And he yelled
Speaker 2: at me in front of them. You were done Bernardi's
Speaker 2: You're done. You're dead. To me, I don't want to
Speaker 2: ever see your face again in front of these people.
Speaker 1: In front of these people.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, And so that was it. That was the
Speaker 2: last time I saw Bill Cosby. And to see all
Speaker 2: those people in the studios with whom I had been,
Speaker 2: you know, speaking and talking like. I did not want
Speaker 2: all these actors and producers and directors to know that
Speaker 2: I had gone through this unbelievable trauma. So I wanted
Speaker 2: to maintain a source of normalcy. Yeah, okay, so everyone's
Speaker 2: looking at me. I have to say goodbye to Bill Cosby.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to maintain like that sort of functionality
Speaker 2: is like a performance almost, you know, like to perform
Speaker 2: this normalcy just so that I don't know. Part of
Speaker 2: it is so I could survive, but also so that
Speaker 2: people wouldn't know, you know, like to protect the perpetrator,
Speaker 2: to protect the lie.
Speaker 1: Right to also to avoid the shame, the shame, the
Speaker 1: cast such a cold shadow. The shame is that we're
Speaker 1: not like everyone else, We're not normal in a way.
Speaker 1: We all want to be invisible when it comes to that.
Speaker 1: No one wants to be the one who sticks out
Speaker 1: in terms of having had a difficult backstory, a shameful,
Speaker 1: bashing story, and that is a huge piece. When you
Speaker 1: add additional layers to that, like race, like gender, that
Speaker 1: shame gets multiplied.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was really shame because I remember feeling
Speaker 2: like I'm stupid. I just remember, I'm so stupid. I'm
Speaker 2: how could I be so dumb to trust its people think?
Speaker 2: How could this have happened three times? You know, like
Speaker 2: I'm dumb, like no one's gonna believe me, and and
Speaker 2: like I'm I just felt like stupid.
Speaker 1: And there's such harm in that because not one stupid
Speaker 1: thing in it. It was almost as though it was
Speaker 1: a formula for how trauma systems work in the brain
Speaker 1: and the body. In terms of how you behaved. There's
Speaker 1: nothing stupid about it, but that stupid narrative is what's forwarded.
Speaker 1: It's forwarded by the media, it's forwarded by the justice system,
Speaker 1: it's forwarded by how attorneys question people. That's really what
Speaker 1: it is, even if they don't say it in as
Speaker 1: many words. It's like you went back, well, this isn't
Speaker 1: the implication, and that is that you were stupid, You
Speaker 1: wanted it you must have wanted it, you went back.
Speaker 1: It's never the question is why did you rape this person?
Speaker 1: We don't ask the perpetrator that, by the way, but
Speaker 1: we ask the survivors repeatedly, why did you go back?
Speaker 1: We never ask those other questions. We don't. We all
Speaker 1: we wanted determined in those damn where it slowly is
Speaker 1: did this person do this? They did, But we never
Speaker 1: asked these bastards, why did you do it? We will
Speaker 1: be right back with this conversation, Soudent. You never saw
Speaker 1: him again ever again. I never spoke to I never
Speaker 1: saw him ever again. What was your life like after this?
Speaker 2: Immediately after the assaults, I was highly suicidal and terrified.
Speaker 2: Of course, my career was derailed because of the trauma.
Speaker 2: And then also he threatened that he would blacklist me.
Speaker 2: So I don't deny that he did that. And so
Speaker 2: I went from a really successful crew. I don't want to,
Speaker 2: I really don't want to focus on that aspect because
Speaker 2: the trauma is much greater. But I was, I was,
Speaker 2: you know, like started a BBC film co started in
Speaker 2: a Stephen King's CBS mini series. I was written in
Speaker 2: a variety for that. So my career was going up
Speaker 2: and up and up and up and up, and then
Speaker 2: the trauma boom. Everything was derailed. So I felt that
Speaker 2: that was over, and then the betrayal of the father figure,
Speaker 2: and I felt that if I spoke to anybody about
Speaker 2: it that I would die because I think I reasonably
Speaker 2: interpreted his threat of erasure as killing me. So to
Speaker 2: the people to whom I did confide about it, like
Speaker 2: my therapist at the time and my agent at the time,
Speaker 2: it was with great fear and like, don't tell anybody,
Speaker 2: And because I couldn't speak, there was a lot of silence.
Speaker 2: The boyfriend that I had at the time blamed and
Speaker 2: shamed me for it, violently tried to silence me, the
Speaker 2: one who confronted Bill Cosby with me, and I still
Speaker 2: married him. So I ended up in an abusive relationship.
Speaker 2: But I gave birth to these six beautiful kids. And
Speaker 2: during this marriage, Yeah, I had all these symptoms of trauma,
Speaker 2: but I didn't even understand that it was PTSD, but
Speaker 2: I thought, Okay, I'm going to heal from this. I
Speaker 2: continued to have flashbacks, night terrrist, panic, attax galore, like
Speaker 2: I can't even to this day. I can't drive the
Speaker 2: freeway on most occasions without going into a big sweat,
Speaker 2: sometimes to the point of my I don't realize I'm hyperventilating,
Speaker 2: and so my fingers turned into like claws, like chicken claws,
Speaker 2: like they freeze and I can't breathe. Pillows are hard
Speaker 2: for me. Showering is hard for me. Lights coming from
Speaker 2: the corner is hard for me. But I was like,
Speaker 2: that's just my life. But then in twenty fourteen, when
Speaker 2: that came full bloom PTSD, I was driving my kids
Speaker 2: to school. My youngest was like five, and you know,
Speaker 2: all over the internet is Bill Cosby, this Bill Cosby,
Speaker 2: that all these women coming public. My friend's calling them liars,
Speaker 2: and I'm cool, And all of a sudden, I'm frozen,
Speaker 2: and I swear Bill Cosby is in the car with
Speaker 2: me because my mommy, mommy, mommy. I managed to get
Speaker 2: into the school. Thankfully, my doctor was just a few
Speaker 2: blocks away. And I'm like, because the suicidal ideation starts coming,
Speaker 2: you know, like, oh my gosh, Bill Cosby's theory, he's
Speaker 2: gonna rap me. I'm gotta have to kill myself because
Speaker 2: he's gonna kill me. I want to beat him to
Speaker 2: killing me. My career is over. My life is over.
Speaker 2: I deserve to be dead. No one's gonna believe me.
Speaker 2: So all that suicidal ideation came in. I know I
Speaker 2: was a danger to myself. I got myself to my
Speaker 2: doctor and I was in a hysterical, full blown PTSD mode.
Speaker 2: The doctor called a fifty one to fifty on me,
Speaker 2: made me go to the psyche ward and I spent
Speaker 2: like three weeks in the sideboard as a full time patient,
Speaker 2: group therapy all day.
Speaker 1: I think from a survivor perspective, it's a lot Hannibal
Speaker 1: Burist comes out, you know, and everyone was just sort
Speaker 1: of snapped too. And around that time, now it's not
Speaker 1: just a comedy bit. This, this is getting out to
Speaker 1: the world, and then you have people now speaking out,
Speaker 1: like the dots almost started very very quickly kind of connecting.
Speaker 1: For you, this was very unsettling. I hear that there's
Speaker 1: a risk of simplifying the story and saying, oh, somebody,
Speaker 1: see people are speaking out. Now it's out there. I'll
Speaker 1: be okay. But in fact your experience was that it
Speaker 1: was shattering.
Speaker 2: It was shattering, and I felt also really conflicted because
Speaker 2: as a visual artist, I'm known for being a black feminist.
Speaker 2: I felt like, what kind of a hypocrite would I
Speaker 2: be to be known in the fine art world as
Speaker 2: a black feminist painter and not be courageous enough to
Speaker 2: speak out like these women. But again, I had thought
Speaker 2: that if I spoke up, I'd be dead, and I
Speaker 2: didn't want to relive the whole trauma. And now it
Speaker 2: was coming full force, physically in control. I'm telling you,
Speaker 2: doctor Ramene, I was twenty four to seven dissociated flashback,
Speaker 2: was critically ill. I couldn't even function.
Speaker 1: It was a very destabilizing experience. That's something I want
Speaker 1: survivors to hear is that there's a range of responses
Speaker 1: when other people come forth.
Speaker 2: So I have all this happening at home, a violent
Speaker 2: husband trying to silence me and blame me and shame me,
Speaker 2: six kids who love Bill Cosby because you know who
Speaker 2: doesn't love fat Albert, and I'm like, I can't go public,
Speaker 2: like their dad wouldn't even tell my kids why was
Speaker 2: in the hospital. It's like, you can't tell the kids
Speaker 2: that you were drugged and raped by Bill Cosby because
Speaker 2: if you tell them, they're going to think you're a
Speaker 2: slut and a horn that you did it, which is
Speaker 2: bs and they're going to tell their friends and then
Speaker 2: their friends are going to slut shame you and all
Speaker 2: this crazy stuff. And then so we were arguing and
Speaker 2: he was yelling at me and you know, slamming stuff
Speaker 2: and throwing his fist in the air and punching holes
Speaker 2: through walls. And then my kid are oldest at the time, seventeen.
Speaker 2: He comes down the stairway to this argument. He's like, Mommy,
Speaker 2: what you mean you're one of Bill Cosby's victims. Yeah, Rapha,
Speaker 2: it's like mommy. And he's like, is this why you
Speaker 2: were in the hospital. I'm like, yeah, he's a mommy.
Speaker 2: You got to speak up. You got to speak up, Mommy,
Speaker 2: you got to join the other women. So his response
Speaker 2: was exactly the opposite of what his dad had expected.
Speaker 2: And because of that, son, Raphael I was like wow.
Speaker 2: I started listening and Beverly Johnson, knowing that I was
Speaker 2: a victim, came to my house and she was trying
Speaker 2: to convince me. I was showing her all my evidence,
Speaker 2: of which I have a lot, and she was like, Lily,
Speaker 2: you gotta be public, and I was like, I can't.
Speaker 2: I spent from November until I was ready to come
Speaker 2: public in May, saying no way was I ever going
Speaker 2: to go to public. No way. So Beverly Johnson tell
Speaker 2: some of the survivors, so I had, so some of
Speaker 2: the survivors, a couple of them started to contacting me,
Speaker 2: whom I didn't know. I heard your victim, you have
Speaker 2: to come public. I'm like, no way, no way, no way,
Speaker 2: no way, And then finally found the courage to do it,
Speaker 2: and it was terrifying. There's like sixty four or five
Speaker 2: of us who've gone public so far about Bill Cosby's
Speaker 2: sexual violence towards us, But at that time, I was like,
Speaker 2: maybe number forty seven. If it weren't for those women,
Speaker 2: I would have gone public. So I came back home
Speaker 2: that day after having spoken to the public. There was
Speaker 2: a van parked outside of my house, and I was like,
Speaker 2: so paranoid at that. I'm sure Bill Cosby sent somebody
Speaker 2: to kill me.
Speaker 1: I would completely understand. I don't think that's paranoid. You know,
Speaker 1: that actually feels like a realistic fear, given all you've
Speaker 1: been through. Again, it's always language matters, right, talking to
Speaker 1: yourself as though you're stupid or dumb or paranoid. No,
Speaker 1: I actually think that everything you were doing made sense
Speaker 1: from a trauma response and the realistic fear when somebody
Speaker 1: threatens you in such a fundamental way and still has
Speaker 1: that power, and then you're seeing the reach of how
Speaker 1: much harm. Sixty five women may have come forward. That
Speaker 1: means there's probably at least double that many who aren't
Speaker 1: coming forward.
Speaker 2: I know some who haven't gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say it was white women might have
Speaker 1: actually felt that may would have been heard more than
Speaker 1: black women would have heard coming forward as well, not
Speaker 1: just because women of color are often less likely to
Speaker 1: be heard by any system, law enforcement, justice systems, society
Speaker 1: at large if they talk about sexual assault or sexual abuse,
Speaker 1: but that this was a black icon, so if they
Speaker 1: came out, they were going to endure much worse from
Speaker 1: the black community than white women would. White women would
Speaker 1: face a different series of accusations, but the fact is
Speaker 1: is that the black women would be almost get in
Speaker 1: a worse way. So you were being disloyal totally.
Speaker 2: And I thank you for mentioning that, doctor Raminey, because
Speaker 2: I want people to understand that out of the sixty
Speaker 2: five of us who have come public, a third of
Speaker 2: us are black women. Black women, we make up like
Speaker 2: five and a half percent of the population of the
Speaker 2: United States. So that means he was actually targeting black women.
Speaker 1: Correct the way he would perpetrate, the way he would
Speaker 1: groom targets, and all of that was so intentional because
Speaker 1: he was so convinced that there's no way these women
Speaker 1: are going to speak out. I'm an icon. Just the
Speaker 1: audacity of it, you know, the emboldenedness with each time
Speaker 1: it happened. It was like doubling down, tripling down, and
Speaker 1: nothing is going to happen. You know, nothing's going to
Speaker 1: happen to me.
Speaker 2: Before I went public, I said, well, the only reason
Speaker 2: I would go public is if anything that I could
Speaker 2: do or say would help change these antiquated laws, these
Speaker 2: statue limitations, these arbitrary time frames, and so yes, So
Speaker 2: I very quickly began working with a woman named Caroline
Speaker 2: Hellman and other copy survivors, and we testified, we lobbied,
Speaker 2: we campaigned, and we went to Sacramento and we abolished
Speaker 2: that statue limitation law. It was like, in sixteen months,
Speaker 2: six hearings of unanimous votes. So yes, there's that. So
Speaker 2: that now opens up a window. So now the States
Speaker 2: are changing in the sense that they're opening up these
Speaker 2: what they call look back windows. Right. So the reason
Speaker 2: I have a case in New Jerseys because they opened
Speaker 2: to look back so cow survivors have the opportunity to
Speaker 2: hold their rapist accountable in a court of civil law.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until that day that he was released from prison.
Speaker 2: Earlier I was like, Okay, I have to take advantage
Speaker 2: of that New Jersey law and follow lawsuit against Bill
Speaker 2: CONSTI so that I can see my day in course,
Speaker 2: so this evidence that I have can be presented so
Speaker 2: he can be held accountable. But even then, even knowing
Speaker 2: that New Jersey had changed their laws, I didn't want
Speaker 2: to do anything with it.
Speaker 1: That's so so common, Lily. I've worked with survivors of
Speaker 1: rape and sexual assault. They'll get about two thirds, even
Speaker 1: two thirds is the way down the track, and then
Speaker 1: there's that moment when they find out that they have
Speaker 1: to face their perpetrator in court, and we work through
Speaker 1: it in therapy from a trauma in foreign perspective, the
Speaker 1: most important thing we can ever tell someone we're working
Speaker 1: with is you always have choice. You always have choice.
Speaker 1: But it's such a complicated space because survivors will say
Speaker 1: I don't want to do this. I don't think I
Speaker 1: can handle this. I literally feel I'm going to die
Speaker 1: and if people need me alive. But in the same
Speaker 1: breath they'll say, I'm so worried. If I don't do this,
Speaker 1: then this person's going to get away with it and
Speaker 1: other people are going to be harmed by them. It's
Speaker 1: almost like, no matter what direction a survivor turns in,
Speaker 1: it's the wrong direction. They're letting other people down, They're
Speaker 1: letting themselves down there, and the vast majorities, vast majority
Speaker 1: of rape trials do not end up in a guilty verdict.
Speaker 2: That's right. Only less than two percent of rapists ever
Speaker 2: see a day behind bars.
Speaker 1: So that's my point. Do you go through all that,
Speaker 1: even with rape kits exactly, So, you go through all
Speaker 1: of that and then still that person then could be
Speaker 1: out in the world who can still harm you. If
Speaker 1: the survivor is a woman of color, forget it. Then
Speaker 1: there's an attitude of this is too big a risk.
Speaker 1: But then the person who doesn't take it to trial
Speaker 1: often feels a sense of moral injury, as though I've
Speaker 1: done wrong by not pushing this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt like that too. I felt like guilty,
Speaker 2: like I have to speak out.
Speaker 1: So Andrea konstant that was definitely a turning point. I
Speaker 1: actually think Beverly Johnson was also a turning point in
Speaker 1: this too. Remember when she spoke out and I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: there are more and more people because some of us
Speaker 1: did not know the names of the survivors, even though
Speaker 1: some of them had really excellent careers, they may not
Speaker 1: have been household names. Beverly Johnson was, and when she
Speaker 1: spoke out, people started sitting up straighter and saying, what
Speaker 1: the heck is happening. Then we have Andrea Constance trial.
Speaker 1: What was it like when Andrea Constance spoke out and
Speaker 1: when her case went to trial?
Speaker 2: For you, Well, there's this survivor's siblinghood. I say siblinghood
Speaker 2: because I'm friends with or I become siblings with survivors
Speaker 2: of famous predators who are men. So there was the
Speaker 2: survivor's sisterhood that played a key role because they were
Speaker 2: there in the courtroom with us. But it was also
Speaker 2: really scary being in that courtroom because, like a lot
Speaker 2: of courtrooms, it was small, and so that was the
Speaker 2: first time I had seen Bill Cosby in person since
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two. There were multiple times where he'd passed
Speaker 2: by me within just a few inches that I could
Speaker 2: smell the raunchy cologne or the tobacco on his breath
Speaker 2: and hear his breathing, and it was triggering. And there
Speaker 2: were sometimes where a number of us Cosby survivors we
Speaker 2: were actually triggered into flashbacks. By that time, I had
Speaker 2: learned through my hospitalizations for the PTSD and my therapist
Speaker 2: that there's certain things that I can do to help
Speaker 2: get me out of the dissociation, out of the flashback,
Speaker 2: such as open up an orange. So I kept an
Speaker 2: orange with me, and then they had a trauma therapist
Speaker 2: at the courthouse who had a dog whom we could
Speaker 2: pet to help bring us out of dissociation. But a
Speaker 2: number of us we would have flashbacks and sobbing, and
Speaker 2: that experience happened to me. And then black arbitrary men
Speaker 2: on the street were coming up and attacking me. It
Speaker 2: was nuts. I mean literally just like coming up, pulling
Speaker 2: up their cars in front of me and sometimes you know,
Speaker 2: lunging at me with their fists raised. At the courthouse,
Speaker 2: this was happening. It was scary, but I knew that
Speaker 2: I was healing in this sense that I didn't pass
Speaker 2: out from hyperventilating. Like even to this day, when I'm
Speaker 2: on the freeway and I have panic attacks, sometimes it's
Speaker 2: so severe that I could actually pass out from the
Speaker 2: hyperventilation I have to pull over. But during all the
Speaker 2: times that I was in the trial as an audience member,
Speaker 2: I'd never passed out. I want to give deference to
Speaker 2: all the women on the stands, and if you could
Speaker 2: have seen those women on the stand really stand firm
Speaker 2: and strong and while they're being attacked. I have never
Speaker 2: in my life seen so much victim blaming and tolerating
Speaker 2: the courtroom that it's just like, how do they allow this?
Speaker 2: And they were really revictimized. I'm hoping and praying that
Speaker 2: at some point I'll have that opportunity to present my
Speaker 2: evidence in court, so I'll have to find the stamina
Speaker 2: and the strength to not dissociate and to answer the
Speaker 2: questions like as well as they did.
Speaker 1: Thing that was being foisted on so many defendants in
Speaker 1: these cases was well, you're an actor, so she knows
Speaker 1: how to act. And that's what the lawyers were always
Speaker 1: hitting back with, Well, she's an actor, she knows how
Speaker 1: to cry the tears at the right time. First of all,
Speaker 1: he is an actor too, and he was out acting everyone,
Speaker 1: charming and charising them and being so charismatic and drawing
Speaker 1: people in and then harming them. Called actor gaslight defense
Speaker 1: that oh, the tears are fake, because actors can fake tears.
Speaker 1: She's performing like somebody who's been harmed by a crime
Speaker 1: would be.
Speaker 2: It's really like a three ring circus the way these
Speaker 2: victims are slut shamed on the stands. So to see that,
Speaker 2: to see my survivor systems attack like that, was so saddening.
Speaker 2: And then when the verdict finally came in guilty, guilty, guilty,
Speaker 2: so stunned that I gasped and I cried, and I
Speaker 2: felt vindicated. I felt like I was dreaming. I had hope.
Speaker 2: And then similarly, when he was released from prison on
Speaker 2: a so called technicality early right, he had a ten
Speaker 2: year sentence and after two and a half years or
Speaker 2: so he was released, that was also like a stab
Speaker 2: in the back. I felt deeply betrayed and that I
Speaker 2: didn't understand it because we were in court and we
Speaker 2: heard that this so called agreement that was made between
Speaker 2: the former prosecutor and Bill Cosby. There was no court
Speaker 2: record of it. Going to believe two men saying that
Speaker 2: there was some kind of a backdoor agreement.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about the survivor community, because I think
Speaker 1: that's that's really important. You're in a very unique space.
Speaker 1: So I think that anyone who's ever experienced sexual assault
Speaker 1: or rape already feels isolated from the world, as though
Speaker 1: you are different. Some people feel that they're sully damaged,
Speaker 1: they feel bad about themselves. Society piles onto that. It's
Speaker 1: not talked about. It makes people uncomfortable, So it's a
Speaker 1: very isolated feeling for survivors of these experiences. Then you
Speaker 1: add on to that when the perpetrator is somebody who's
Speaker 1: very well known, and that's a whole different space. People
Speaker 1: are even more likely to doubt, to blame, to shame,
Speaker 1: how dare you bring down my hero kind of thing?
Speaker 2: Right, the survivor's sisterhood or what I call the survivor's
Speaker 2: siblinghood is definitely the silver lining out of all the trauma,
Speaker 2: and like even though like when I get the call like, oh,
Speaker 2: we have to stand and support of the Weinstein survivors
Speaker 2: who are part of the sisterhood, I'm longo, No, I
Speaker 2: have to be in a courtroom with Harvey Weinstein and
Speaker 2: it's just a few feet away, and I'm like, But
Speaker 2: when you're in that courtroom with the Weinstein survivors and
Speaker 2: they're sitting beside you, and they know that you took
Speaker 2: time out of your day to support them, and you're
Speaker 2: holding them through their crying and you're crying, it brings
Speaker 2: so much meaning to the whole thing, you know. And
Speaker 2: part of the sisterhood is also the R. Kelly survivors.
Speaker 2: I've met the R. Kelly survivors, and they I think
Speaker 2: have it the worst because they're all black women and
Speaker 2: they were disbelieved, and I think that they have strength
Speaker 2: like no other survivor does of a iconic perpetrator in
Speaker 2: their case R Kelly, who sang songs made people believe
Speaker 2: that they could fly. It's comforting, it's empowering. One of
Speaker 2: the difficult things I must say about is that I
Speaker 2: get a lot of calls and emails from people all
Speaker 2: over the world who thank me that because of you
Speaker 2: speaking out, I was able to hold my priest accountable
Speaker 2: or tell my daughters that my teacher rape me or
Speaker 2: this or that. But then Also, some people look at
Speaker 2: you as if you're some kind of therapist and you're not.
Speaker 2: Can you talk to my niece who was rare? Can
Speaker 2: you talk to my That's tough and it's really hard
Speaker 2: because I'm not a therapist and it's triggering, so I
Speaker 2: have to work on. My therapist taught me how to, like,
Speaker 2: you know, tap on certain parts of yes. Right before
Speaker 2: going to the Cosby sentencing hearing and September twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: I was on a busy road that was like a
Speaker 2: freeway when I started to have a panic attack and hyperventilate.
Speaker 2: I had to pull over the road really quickly to
Speaker 2: get safe, and a cop was behind me and he
Speaker 2: stopped me, and I couldn't speak because I was hyperventilating,
Speaker 2: and I managed to get my therapist on the phone
Speaker 2: through the police, and he was threatened that he would
Speaker 2: take me to jail if I didn't cooperate and get
Speaker 2: the registrat. But I couldn't even speak. I couldn't move
Speaker 2: my fingers because I was so hyperventilated, so much COTO
Speaker 2: in my brain. And finally my therapist got on speakerphone
Speaker 2: and she talked me through the deep breathing and I
Speaker 2: calmed down and I was sobbing, and the police it
Speaker 2: was really nice because I'm so sorry, ma'am. Do you
Speaker 2: want me to take you to the hospital. I'm okay,
Speaker 2: And then like the next day, I went to the
Speaker 2: sentencing hearing. So it's real. You know that TSD is debilitating.
Speaker 2: But I'm sleeping the night terrors terrifying because you're in
Speaker 2: your subconscious and all of a sudden, I think I'm
Speaker 2: being suffocated by a pillow and I can't breathe them,
Speaker 2: and I wake up gasping. And sometimes my poor kids,
Speaker 2: if they're in a room in the morning and my
Speaker 2: daughter comes in and wakes me, and I, you know,
Speaker 2: scream Sometimes I wake up screaming and I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, baby. You can go right back to it
Speaker 2: pretty quickly. I guess like any war veteran has PTSD,
Speaker 2: except the war waged upon us was waged upon the
Speaker 2: landscapes of our bodies and not overseas.
Speaker 1: It's different, but it's similar. Not all PTSD is the same.
Speaker 1: It has to do with how severe and how protracted
Speaker 1: and how close the person was to trauma. But the
Speaker 1: one thing we're really learning about too is the difference
Speaker 1: between relational trauma and trauma that happens in war. If
Speaker 1: you look at some of the military PTSD literature, there
Speaker 1: are people who went through it and it was in
Speaker 1: this context if you were doing something that was supposed
Speaker 1: to be for a greater good. But depends on what
Speaker 1: the war was. World War two vets had different profiles
Speaker 1: and for example, Vietnam era vets because of how those
Speaker 1: two conflicts were differently framed. So it's very complicated. But
Speaker 1: when we come to rape survivors, and particularly rape survivors,
Speaker 1: the majority who know their perpetrator, this is relational betrayal trauma.
Speaker 1: It goes beyond the actual violation of body, but violation
Speaker 1: of trust and betrayal of a human relationship a person
Speaker 1: you held up as a father figure, as a spouse,
Speaker 1: as a partner, as a parent of your children, as
Speaker 1: a mentor whatever that perpetrator is. It changes it. And
Speaker 1: I think that the problems we say PTSD we think
Speaker 1: it's a uniform entity, but it behaves and looks and
Speaker 1: feels differently to the survivors depending on the context in
Speaker 1: which the trauma took place. It's always terrible, but it's
Speaker 1: different kinds of terrible, and it has different influences on this.
Speaker 1: My conversation will continue after this break. I'm going to
Speaker 1: put on my little Freudian hat for a minute. You
Speaker 1: did something so interestingly when you were talking about the
Speaker 1: survivor's sisterhood, but you slipped and you called it your
Speaker 1: survivor's system instead of your survivor's sister Here's what's interesting
Speaker 1: about that. I actually think that that's a good thing
Speaker 1: because I think that it is beyond just the survivor's sisters.
Speaker 1: It has become this social support system around you that
Speaker 1: is helping you with the process of healing and the
Speaker 1: validation you need that. Like you said, you're not a therapist,
Speaker 1: and it can be a lot when people ask you
Speaker 1: to be one. But when we feel we're paying it forward,
Speaker 1: that idea of taking our pain and our suffering and
Speaker 1: converting it, there is a lot of healing energy in that.
Speaker 1: So that takes me though to my question, how is
Speaker 1: your healing going.
Speaker 2: It's hard because I'm still in a legal battle with
Speaker 2: Bill Cosby. I still live in fear. I still deal
Speaker 2: with feelings of self loathing, yeah and worthlessness. My day
Speaker 2: to day life is difficult in the sense of the
Speaker 2: triggers that I always have to deal with, they come
Speaker 2: out of nowhere, even my daughter whispering in my ear
Speaker 2: or something, because Bill Cosby whispered in my ear after
Speaker 2: he raped me in Las Vegas. You know, damn, you're
Speaker 2: so strong, Bernard. People telling me I'm strong, So I
Speaker 2: have to deal with those things. People even just like
Speaker 2: telling me drink. Sometimes I'm in the street and people
Speaker 2: recognize me and I'm trying to have a really good day,
Speaker 2: you know, just just having a good day, and someone
Speaker 2: will come in the street and, bless their hearts, they
Speaker 2: want to be supportive, but oh, I know you. Or
Speaker 2: I'm taking my dog to the vet and there's this big,
Speaker 2: gigantic poster about that documentary of Bill Cosby's. Before you'd
Speaker 2: google my name and just my acting and my fine
Speaker 2: artwork would come up. Now this horrible mugshot Bill Cosby
Speaker 2: comes up. So there's this day to day difficulty. Yes,
Speaker 2: sleeping is difficult, showering is difficult. But the survivor's sisterhood
Speaker 2: is like, I really don't know if I could survive
Speaker 2: without it. But we don't want to pity myself and
Speaker 2: say like, oh, like I'm as little fragile little thing.
Speaker 2: I'm pushing through. I'm surviving, but it's not easy. It's like,
Speaker 2: really really not easy. I do have these feelings of
Speaker 2: I'm stupid and a fear of what's going to happen
Speaker 2: when and if we make it to court. I want
Speaker 2: to be strong for my children, but then at the
Speaker 2: same time, when I fail, I've done them wrong. When
Speaker 2: those days were I just want to like cuddle up
Speaker 2: in bed and disappear.
Speaker 1: But I think that that's an important answer you gave,
Speaker 1: because we always want to hear like I survived and
Speaker 1: now I'm thriving and all my days are great, and
Speaker 1: then other survivors are saying, well, this is not my experience,
Speaker 1: and when they hear from someone like you who has
Speaker 1: been walking this walk, there's going to be good days.
Speaker 1: There's going to be bad days, there's going to be
Speaker 1: things that remind you of it. Then there's going to
Speaker 1: be a good week, and then there's going to be
Speaker 1: a bad week. And I also want to even reframe
Speaker 1: what you're calling resilience or lack of resilience. I think
Speaker 1: we have this sort of simplistic version of resilience of
Speaker 1: like every day I get out, but I fight the
Speaker 1: good fight, and you were saying, oh, I'm not so strong.
Speaker 1: Some days I stay in bed. The staying in bed
Speaker 1: days are resilient days. That's a repleating of your nervous system.
Speaker 1: Your nervous system took a hit. It's almost like getting
Speaker 1: an injury when you're young and then having to put
Speaker 1: that leg up. We think that if I'm not getting
Speaker 1: out there fighting every day, I'm not resilient. Quite the contrary.
Speaker 1: If anything, you're honoring your body, a body that was harmed,
Speaker 1: and now you're honoring it by giving it the rest
Speaker 1: it needs. He's a free man right now, I.
Speaker 2: Know, and that gives me a fear. I'm really afraid
Speaker 2: because if he says that he's well enough to tour
Speaker 2: and do stand up comic routines, I don't doubt that
Speaker 2: he'd be well enough to do what he's done pretty
Speaker 2: much with impune his whole life, which is drug and
Speaker 2: rape girls and women.
Speaker 1: If someone did approach you and said, hey, something like
Speaker 1: this happened to me. I was sexually abused, assaulted, raped
Speaker 1: by someone. What would you tell them?
Speaker 2: That's a great question. I would tell them what I
Speaker 2: told my friend. She's an actor. From Scotland and she
Speaker 2: came to me about this famous French director who sexually
Speaker 2: assaulted her. She asked me if I should speak up
Speaker 2: and go public and I was like, well, first of all,
Speaker 2: that's your choice, but I want to let you know
Speaker 2: that there's great, great, great, great burden that comes with
Speaker 2: speaking out. And if you're going to speak out publicly
Speaker 2: about a beloved individual, get ready for backlash, get ready
Speaker 2: for your life being made much more difficult. Then you
Speaker 2: have to keep reliving the trauma. Like, on the one hand,
Speaker 2: pause and think about the effects of speaking out against
Speaker 2: someone beloved publicly. On the other hand, there's the empowering.
Speaker 2: I think that speaking out was the best thing that
Speaker 2: I could have done for my healing because I broke
Speaker 2: the silence.
Speaker 1: It's actually a fantastic answer because survivors need realistic expectations.
Speaker 1: So as a final question, what is one thing that
Speaker 1: you would want people to learn from your story?
Speaker 2: I would say to know that in your path of
Speaker 2: silence breaking and healing that you will encounter disappointment. You
Speaker 2: will find that even though you may have a rape
Speaker 2: kit or a police report and go through a trial,
Speaker 2: that your rapists will still be found not guilty. There's
Speaker 2: literally a ninety nine percent chance that your rapist will
Speaker 2: be found not guilty, and to not let that disappointment
Speaker 2: discourage you from pushing forward, because there's political or culture
Speaker 2: shifting power in your voice, and there's healing to be
Speaker 2: found in the survivor siblinghood. Trust that you're speaking out
Speaker 2: in the end will heal you.
Speaker 1: That is it's incredible wisdom, and I cannot thank you enough.
Speaker 2: You're amazing.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, and I need to learn to take
Speaker 1: that in, especially from someone as sort of powerful a
Speaker 1: storyteller as you are. So thank you for that.
Speaker 2: Do you realize the influence that you've had on modern culture? Really?
Speaker 1: I think so, But I'll be very open with you.
Speaker 1: I've had my own history and in a strange way,
Speaker 1: not always wanting to be seen and wanting to be small.
Speaker 1: And yet I also recognize that I was blessed to
Speaker 1: be educated. I'm the child of immigrants. Education was everything,
Speaker 1: and I was told it was the only way I
Speaker 1: could be seen in this culture. So all of that said,
Speaker 1: I guess I do. I think it's a conversation. I'm
Speaker 1: angry at the field of mental health for not having
Speaker 1: had this conversation soon, right, and people need to know
Speaker 1: that this is a thing so they can protect themselves
Speaker 1: and above all else blaming themselves. So that's all I've
Speaker 1: ever wanted to do is get that message out because
Speaker 1: I know it silenced me for a very long time.
Speaker 1: I didn't find my voice until I was over fifty
Speaker 1: and so ben at that point, I thought, Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it. And I came from again
Speaker 1: generations of women who were silenced, so I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: for no other reason but for the ancestors, I was
Speaker 1: going to do this.
Speaker 2: So I'm really sorry for the trauma you and door,
Speaker 2: and I'm so thankful that you are speaking because you
Speaker 2: represent so much to so many people as a woman
Speaker 2: of color. And then you're just so beautiful. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: What you've done for me and my family is that
Speaker 2: you've provided us because my sister Georgie is always sharing
Speaker 2: in my sibling my real blood sibling group chat doctor
Speaker 2: Rominey videos, You've got given us this roadmap for that
Speaker 2: really helps us and me understand why did I act
Speaker 2: that way and why did this perpetrator act like that
Speaker 2: towards me? That it's just kind of normal and when
Speaker 2: we learn from you the narcissism, it is like a system.
Speaker 2: It's like principality of evil or personality fact that like
Speaker 2: everybody acts the same, like Harvey Weinstein was saying the
Speaker 2: same kind of things that Bill Cosby says. You've given
Speaker 2: me tools to really understand my own healing process.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that, because that's what this is about,
Speaker 1: is to give resources to people. Because you have found
Speaker 1: your voice. But when we think about all the people
Speaker 1: out there who are marginalized, who don't have voice, who
Speaker 1: have no societal power, and need some guidance. My hope
Speaker 1: was to create resources that as long as you had
Speaker 1: an Internet connection somewhere, that this would be free, because
Speaker 1: most people will never get into a therapist room, or
Speaker 1: can't afford to get into a therapist room at a minimum.
Speaker 1: I wanted to at least make sure that there was
Speaker 1: some knowledge out there to at least bridge some of
Speaker 1: that pain, because that's always been my concern is how
Speaker 1: many people can't access help. So thank you. What I
Speaker 1: really appreciate you about your voice is how realistic it
Speaker 1: is is that you know, I get a little burned
Speaker 1: out on people who just sort of scream all this positivity.
Speaker 1: I'm like, is that feeling when we temper these stories
Speaker 1: with what it looks like in the dark knights of
Speaker 1: the soul. That's what survivors need to hear because otherwise
Speaker 1: they feel shamed again. So I really appreciate you sharing
Speaker 1: not only you're the triumph of getting up in the morning,
Speaker 1: but also the underbelly of healing which isn't always pretty
Speaker 1: and make us feel like we're not doing it right.
Speaker 1: But if it hurts, it means you're doing it right.
Speaker 1: Thank you. These are my takeaways from my conversation with
Speaker 1: Lily first love bombing that early idealization and seduction can
Speaker 1: also look like a process of intel gathering, a time
Speaker 1: when a predatory person intensely learns about someone else. In
Speaker 1: this case, Lily shares that Cosby learned about her love
Speaker 1: of music, the abuse that happened in her family of origin,
Speaker 1: her Afro Cuban heritage, and her love of art. This
Speaker 1: interest and acting as a father figure reflect the predatory
Speaker 1: elements of love bombing, which is often an exploitation of
Speaker 1: a person's vulnerabilities. Cosby not only learned her vulnerabilities, he
Speaker 1: exploited her strengths as an educated young woman with ambition
Speaker 1: and aspirations. In my next takeaway, when we view Cosby's
Speaker 1: behavior through a narcissistic lens, it all fits. Manipulative behavior, arrogance,
Speaker 1: the future faking when he'd say, just come meet me
Speaker 1: here and we can talk about this role I am
Speaker 1: writing for you. Down the line, he's violating the rights
Speaker 1: of others, his entitlement, contempt and dismissiveness once he gets
Speaker 1: what he wants from someone. The exploitative behavior, the rage,
Speaker 1: and an utter lack of empathy while being able to
Speaker 1: put on a false mask for the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: Narcissism is a driver of this kind of abusive, dehumanizing behavior.
Speaker 1: For my next takeaway, Lily's experience and the fallout of
Speaker 1: the narcissistic abuse she experienced is consistent with what we
Speaker 1: see in all survivors of narcissistic abuse. Self blame, anxiety, shame,
Speaker 1: post traumatic reactions, confusion, fear, panic attacks, hopelessness, helplessness. It's
Speaker 1: all there. It's the betrayal which occurs within what is
Speaker 1: supposed to be a trusting relationship that leads to this fallout.
Speaker 1: This goes above and beyond the consequences of the assaults.
Speaker 1: This is about being slowly drawn into a false web
Speaker 1: of trust which is ultimately and horrifically betrayed. In my
Speaker 1: next takeaway, enabling is such a toxic dynamic in narcissistic relationships.
Speaker 1: It is the emboldening of narcissistic behavior by people around
Speaker 1: the narcissist, their friends, families, people who benefit financially from them,
Speaker 1: even society at large. Well, what if society is the enabler.
Speaker 1: That is a bigger fight than any one person can
Speaker 1: take on. In Lily's case, she was not only shouldering
Speaker 1: the burden of being abused and assaulted, but of the
Speaker 1: recriminations from society at large and particularly the black community
Speaker 1: for calling out someone who had been depicted as a hero. Sadly,
Speaker 1: in all of these cases, it is the survivors who
Speaker 1: are shamed for dismantling the delusion of the false hero,
Speaker 1: not the perpetrators who brought themselves down. For this next takeaway,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about doctor Jennifer Fried's concept of
Speaker 1: institutional betrayal, which takes the idea of betrayal trauma and
Speaker 1: elevate it's to an entire organization or institution like, for example,
Speaker 1: the entertainment industry. This is a high stakes industry with
Speaker 1: a high bar of entry that attracts young people who
Speaker 1: lack societal power and is a set up for institutional betrayal.
Speaker 1: This particular case is a galling example of how an
Speaker 1: entire industry stood by while women were harmed for decades
Speaker 1: and in essence betrayed them, blame them, silence them, and
Speaker 1: did not give them any safe spaces. In my next takeaway,
Speaker 1: Lily talks about her survivor sisterhood or system of other
Speaker 1: women who had been abused and silenced by publicly powerful
Speaker 1: people and is a space where it is very difficult
Speaker 1: to find people who have had a similar experience. These
Speaker 1: survivor spaces are essential for people. They may be support groups,
Speaker 1: online groups, or groups of people who show up for
Speaker 1: each other. There are few more important tools for survivorship
Speaker 1: than support, especially for survivors of narcissistic abuse, a pattern
Speaker 1: that is often not recognized by systems and professionals. For
Speaker 1: this next takeaway, Lily raised the issue of rape myths.
Speaker 1: These are myths that are upheld by society and even
Speaker 1: by systems like law enforcement and judicial systems. Overall, rape
Speaker 1: myths serve to blame the victims of rape and sexual assault.
Speaker 1: Most common among these are that if it happens more
Speaker 1: than once, then that is not rape because a person
Speaker 1: agreed to the second time, or that a person liked it.
Speaker 1: Other rape myths are that no can mean yes, or
Speaker 1: that agreeing to meet in a private place means that
Speaker 1: a person is agreeing to sex as well, that dressing
Speaker 1: provocatively means that a person asked for it, that most
Speaker 1: rapes are perpetrated by strangers, that if a person does
Speaker 1: not report it right away, that it is not a rape,
Speaker 1: or that rape only happens to young people who are
Speaker 1: considered to be attractive. These myths are deeply dangerous, silence
Speaker 1: survivors and result in systems that continue to retraumatize survivors.
Speaker 1: And in my last takeaway, sometimes our takes on healing
Speaker 1: and resilience are a little bit too feel good. We
Speaker 1: want it to be easy, We want to hear the
Speaker 1: stories of the phoenixes rising from the ashes, but that
Speaker 1: blocks us from seeing the reality of healing and survivorship,
Speaker 1: which is often initially two steps forward, two steps back,
Speaker 1: and then every so often a few more steps forward.
Speaker 1: Now Lily has gone on to do wonderful things in
Speaker 1: her career, has raised six children, survived a painful marriage,
Speaker 1: and has succeeded in changing the statute of limitations on
Speaker 1: sexual assault reporting. She also still has panic attacks and
Speaker 1: experiences of being triggered. This is the reality of survivorship
Speaker 1: and it is a daily process.