With the sort of brazenness that only a man whose sexual assault trial just ended in a mistrial can truly pull off, Bill Cosby’s team recently announced that he would be holding a series of town hall meetings based around educating young people—particularly college athletes—on how to avoid being accused of sexual assault. Cosby’s spokesman Andrew Wyatt explains that young men “should know what they’re facing when they’re hanging out and partying, when they’re doing certain things they shouldn’t be doing” so they don’t get taken to court over “a brush against the shoulder.” It’s worth noting at this point that Cosby’s team literally said that stuff and that this isn’t a situation where the whole world inexplicably misinterpreted something in the same way.
Of course, Cosby’s team is suggesting that the whole world did inexplicably misinterpret this in the same way, and believe it or not, it’s all because of that evil boogeyman called “the media.” This comes from Deadline, which says Cosby’s publicist Ebonee Benson is claiming that the town hall meetings were never about sexual assault, and that they’ll actually be focused on “the restoration of [Cosby’s] legacy,” which was “destroyed by the media” even before he went to court. Benson explained that on CNN, and to the news network’s credit, the hosts then called out Benson and Cosby’s team for flip-flopping on this story and trying to spin it into “the media” being unfair to Cosby.
Basically, Cosby’s camp is taking a page out of Donald Trump’s book by changing its story and then accusing everyone else of lying. Also, Cosby was not acquitted of sexual assault. He will have to go on trial again, and he very well could lose that trial, so fighting for the “restoration” of his legacy right now seems a little premature.