Bill Cosby said he had sexual relationships with at least five women and tried to hide the affairs from his wife, the New York Times reported Saturday.
The paper told CNN it obtained a copy of the deposition where Cosby said he obtained seven prescriptions for the sedative Quaaludes from a Los Angeles doctor, ostensibly for a bad back, but really to give to young women he partied with. He said the sex and drug-taking were consensual, the Times reported.
The deposition was taken 10 years ago and stems from a civil lawsuit filed by Andrea Constand — one of the dozens of women who have publicly accused the comedian of sexual assault.
Cosby, 78, has never been criminally charged and has vehemently denied wrongdoing.
CNN has not yet obtained the full deposition and cannot independently confirm the veracity of the Times story.
When reached for comment Saturday night, Cosby publicist Andrew Wyatt said, “We’re not making any comments right now. Thank you.” Constand attorney Dolores Troiani had no comment when reached by CNN.
Earlier this month, documents relating to the Constand lawsuit were released in which Cosby has admitted to getting prescription Quaaludes to give to young women he wanted to have sex with.
In those earlier documents, Cosby says he gave Constand one and a half tablets of Benadryl to relieve stress.
Bill Cosby admitted to getting Quaaludes to give to women
In the deposition, Cosby mostly discusses his years-long relationship with Constand but described sexual relationships with at least five women in different cities across the nation, in hotels and in one of his homes, the Times reported.
Constand was a staffer for the women’s basketball team at Cosby’s alma mater, Temple University, when she visited Cosby’s Pennsylvania home in 2004. According to Constand, Cosby gave her medication that made her dizzy. She said she later woke up to find her bra undone and her clothes in disarray.
Cosby eventually settled the legal suit, which claimed that 13 “Jane Does” had similar stories of sexual abuse. The suit was settled under confidential terms.
Since then, more than 25 women have publicly accused Cosby of raping or assaulting them over the past 40 years, often alleging he gave them some sort of drug without their knowledge.
In the deposition, Cosby said he tried to keep his wife, Camille Cosby, in the dark, at one point funneling money to a woman so his wife wouldn’t find out, the Times reported. He said he offered to pay for Constand’s further education, the Times reported.
Cosby said he imagined his wife would have known he was helping pay for Constand’s education but not because they’d had sex and Constand was now upset, the Times quotes him as saying in the deposition.
Cosby said in the deposition that he was a mentor to Constand, the Time reported. He said he deepened his relationship with her by inviting her to his house to talk about “personal situations dealing with her life, growth, education,” the Times reported, quoting the deposition.
The Times said Cosby talked about his philosophy of sex in the deposition, saying he tried to avoid sexual intercourse because he didn’t want women falling in love with him.
The Times said: “To him, he said, the act of sexual intercourse ‘is something that I feel the woman will succumb to more of a romance and more of a feeling, not love, but it’s deeper than a playful situation.’ As far as he and Ms. Constand went, he said, they were ‘playing sex, we’re playing, petting, we’re playing.’ “
The entertainer described his seduction strategy, saying he asked one woman about her father’s cancer because he wanted to have sex with her, the Times reported.
He said he was good at reading nonverbal clues that showed a woman was consenting to sex, the Times said.
“I think I’m a pretty decent reader of people and their emotions in these romantic sexual things, whatever you want to call them,” he said, according to the Times story.
