Comedian Damon Wayans spent the weekend defending his comments about women who've accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault, saying his online critics had taken his live radio remarks — in which he called them "unrapeable" and part of a "money hustle" — out of context.
"Stop twisting my words," he said on Twitter, with a link to a brief segment of the interview in which he expressed sympathy for Cosby victims.
But that short clip is taken from a lengthy discussion Friday morning with the hosts of "The Breakfast Club" on New York's Power 105.1 FM in which he repeatedly undermined the accusers' credibility.
It began with a host asking Wayans what advice he'd give Cosby,
who has been accused by dozens of women who say he sexually assaulted them after plying them with alcohol and drugs, including Quaaludes, years ago. Cosby, 78, faces several lawsuits but has never been charged with any crime. He has said his activity with the women was consensual.
Wayans responded:
If I was him I would divorce my wife — wink wink — give her all my money, and then I would go do a deposition. I’d get one of them three hour cigars. I’d have me some wine and maybe a Quaalude. And I would just go off. Because I don’t believe that he was raping. I think he was in relationships with all of them.
Wayans, in the studio to promote a string of stand-up performances in a New York nightclub, then suggested that the women couldn't have been raped because they weren't attractive.
And some of them really is unrapeable. I look at them and go, "No, I don’t want that. Get out of here."
At another point, Wayans said that Cosby was suffering in part because he'd angered young black men in the past and now wasn't getting their support.
If it was my daughter, then I would have killed Bill Cosby. But being just, sitting back looking at it, I just go, I just don’t believe it. I think it’s a money hustle.
Finally, at the end of the interview, when host Angela Yee said she believed some of the accusers were credible, Wayans responded:
There may be. And for them my heart goes out to them. For anybody who was raped by Bill Cosby, I’m sorry, and I hope you get justice. You other b----es, "he gave me two pills." He wasn’t a doctor back then. It was like, that was the drug of choice. Like molly is the drug of choice now. Like people do that to get in the mood. I don’t, I can’t, I don’t believe it.
Jon SchuppeJon Schuppe is an enterprise reporter for NBC News, based in New York.
Shamar Walters contributed.
