Bill Cosby will not dignify “decade-old, discredited” claims of sexual abuse with a response, his attorney John Schmitt said Sunday in reaction to an increasing uproar over allegations that Cosby assaulted several women in the past. In a statement posted online, Schmitt said the fact that the allegations are being repeated “does not make them true.” “He would like to thank all his fans for the outpouring of support and assure them that, at age 77, he is doing his best work,” Schmitt said. The renewed attention to the claims began last month when a comedian, Hannibal Buress, assailed him during a stand-up performance in Philadelphia, calling him a “rapist.” His remarks were captured on video and posted online. And last week, one of Cosby’s accusers, Barbara Bowman, leveled allegations of sexual assault against him in an online column for the Washington Post. Bowman wrote that in 1985, she was 17 and an aspiring actress when Cosby “brainwashed me into viewing him as a father figure, and then assaulted me multiple times.” Cosby, who was never criminally charged in any case, settled a civil suit in 2006 with another woman over a purported assault two years before. Since the allegations resurfaced, Cosby has canceled an appearance on CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman, and another engagement, on The Queen Latifah Show on Oct. 30, was characterized by that show as a postponement granted at Cosby’s request.
Jennifer Lawrence said she knew being a movie star would come with a loss of privacy. What she didn’t know, she said, was the deep emotional and even physical toll it would take. “I knew the paparazzi were going to be a reality in my life,” the 24-year-old Oscar winner said Saturday. “But I didn’t know that I would feel anxiety every time I open my front door, or that being chased by 10 men you don’t know, or being surrounded, feels invasive and makes me feel scared and gets my adrenaline going every day.” The actress spoke Saturday while promoting The Hunger Games: Mockingjay: Part 1, the third installment of the blockbuster franchise that catapulted her to stardom. “You can say, ‘This [invasion of privacy] is part of my job,’” Lawrence said. “But what you don’t expect is how your body and how your emotions are going to react to it.” And yet, she added with her typical candor, the public isn’t very sympathetic to such complaints. “Nobody wants to help us because it seems like, you know, ‘Shut up, millionaires!’” she said.