For the last couple of weeks, women have been coming out of the woodwork with allegations of sexual assault at the hands of Bill Cosby. So far the total number is at least 15, but a reporter is now divulging that America’s formerly most-loved TV dad wasn’t exactly Cliff Huxtable when it came to his own daughter.
In a report for Page Six of the New York Post, Richard Johnson tells the story of a former reporter who had an encounter with Cosby. The reporter, who was not named and who worked for the National Enquirer at the time, told Johnson that Cosby offered details about his daughter Erinn’s drug and alcohol abuse problem—if the reporter killed a story about his swinging, Vegas lifestyle with Sammy Davis Jr.
“My editor told me that Daddy Cosby was the source. He ratted out his flesh and blood,” the reporter told Johnson.
According to Johnson, in October 1989, the Enquirer did indeed run a story about Erinn. Cosby told the tabloid, “Tough love is the only way of dealing with this. We love her and want her to get better, but we have to take a very firm, very tough stand that forces her to realize that no one can fix things for her. She has to beat this on her own.”
When the Associated Press attempted to get a comment about Cosby’s daughter, he stated that he wouldn’t talk about it again.
However, in a later interview with the Los Angeles Times, Cosby told the newspaper about his trials and tribulations with his daughter. “We have four other children. This particular daughter appears to be the only one who is really very selfish,” he said. “She’s never held down a job, never kept an apartment for more than six months. She uses her boyfriends. She wants the finer things, but she can’t stand anybody else’s dirt.”
Talk about tough love.