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CNN Special Reports

The Cosby Show: A Legend Under Fire

Aired January 14, 2015 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, I'm Don Lemon and this is our CNN special. The Cosby Show, A Legend Under Fire.

Generation of America grew up with Bill Cosby. He wasn't just a comedian, he was Cliff Huxtable, America's dad, revered by black and white. But how do you go from being one of the most respected and loved people in this country to this.

Well, today, yet another woman came forward and filed a police complaint against Cosby, accusing him of sexual assault. We're going to get into that just a bit. Also ahead tonight, though, I'm going to talk to a group of women who accused Cosby of assaulting them. And we'll hear from model, Beverly Johnson, who accuses Cosby of drugging her during a meeting at his home back in the 1980s. Well, let's begin with the story behind the scandal. CNN Jean Casarez has that.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The fall from grace of a living American legend, 50 years in the making, Cosby's alleged questionable behavior largely unheard about for decades. Now, it follows Cosby wherever he goes.

Protesters standing strong outside the theater just last week, while Bill Cosby does his stand of act inside during his Canadian your, amid even more controversies.

During the performance, a heckler is ejected after yelling...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are a rapist. Get out of here.

BILL COSBY, COMEDIAN: No, no, stop. Stop it.

CASAREZ: But the fans continued to cheer Cosby.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler shocked the audience at this weekend's Golden Globe Awards.

AMY POEHLER, ACTRESS: And sleeping beauty just thought she was getting coffee with Bill Cosby.

TINA FEY, ACTRESS: I put the pills into people. The people does not want the pills in them.

CASAREZ: These accusations started off, believe it or not, in a theater too, as a joke. Back on October 16, comedian, Hannibal Buress, says something that goes viral. HANNIBAL BURESS, COMEDIAN: I can talk down on you because I have a

successful sitcom. Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby.

CASAREZ: Then less than a month later, Cosby's Twitter page as fans to mean Cosby. The results are overwhelmingly negative and quickly taken down. That begins a flood of allegations from women who say they were sexually assaulted by Cosby. Many claim they were drugged as the supermodel, Beverly Johnson.

She says it happened about 30 years ago, when she went to the star's home to audition for The Cosby Show.

BEVERY JOHNSON, SUPERMODEL: He was very insistent that I try this cappuccino that would be the best coffee that I would ever had. It was very powerful. It came on very quickly. The room starts to spin. At that point, I knew he had drugged me.

CASAREZ: Johnson doesn't believe she was sexually assaulted. While CNN and Cosby's lawyers have corresponded, his attorneys have not publicly commented on this allegation. But with regard to the other reports, they have called them, "Decade-old, discredited allegations against Mr. Cosby. The fact that they are being repeated does not make them true."

One of the most famous women in Bill Cosby's life is coming to his aid.

PHYLICIA RASHAD, ACTRESS: He's a genius. He is generous. He is kind. He's inclusive.

CASAREZ: Actress Phylicia Rashad, who famously played Claire Huxtable on the ground-breaking sitcom, The Cosby Show, that she never saw or heard about elicit behavior by her T.V. husband.

Rashad sat down with ABC news after an interview with gossip site, Showbiz411.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You were quoted on line and saying, "Forget those women."

RASHAD: And that was a misquote. And that is not what I said. This is about the obliteration of the legacy.

GLORIA ALLRED, ATTORNEY: If Mr. Cosby's legacy is destroyed, he has no one to blame, but himself.

CASAREZ: Three new alleged victims have come forward with famed attorney, Gloria Allred.

Lynn NEAL, BILL COSBY'S ACCUSER: He built my trust by pretending to be a friend. He drugged and raped me.

CASAREZ: In the 1980s, Lynn Neal was in here mid-20s and a therapist at a health club in Las Vegas. Cosby befriended here there, she says, and then... NEAL: He said, "Just drink it." So I did. I was having problems walking, I felt disoriented and confused. I didn't understand what was happening to me. I've never felt that way before. He told me he -- to calm down and he wasn't going to hurt me, and he start having sex with me.

CASAREZ: Kacey was an employee at the William Morris Talent Agency and worked with Cosby as an assistant to Cosby's personal apparent agent.

In 1996, she says he took a more personal interest in her career before the camera, something she had never considered. He had to read a scene that ended with a kiss.

KACEY: I did not want to...

(AUDIO GAP)

BEVERLY JOHNSON: ... and I knew that I had been drugged by Bill Cosby.

CASAREZ: And that has many saying it is past time for Cosby himself to fully address the scandal.

Jean Casarez CNN, New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Jean, thank you very much. We asked Bill Cosby's attorney Marty Singer for a comment in response to our special tonight. We did not get a response.

Bill Cosby has an open invitation to come on CNN and tell his side of the story. Well even more women are coming forward. Up next, I'm going to speak with Attorney Gloria Allred and three of her clients who accuse a comic legend of sexual assault.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So welcome back to our CNN special, The Cosby Show, A Legend Under Fire. Today in Los Angeles, a model named Chloe Goins came forward, accusing Bill Cosb of drugging and sexually assaulting her at the Playboy Mansion six years ago. Local reports say she filled an official complaint with the Los Angeles Police Department claiming that she passed out after Cosby gave her a drink and we should warn you that this next part is really graphic.

Report says that her reporter claims, Chloe Goins woke up and she was naked in bed next to him. Cosby was licking her toes while touching himself. Meanwhile there are more women who are coming forward alleging they were assaulted by the comic legend. I'm joined now by Attorney Gloria Allred who represents three women alleging abused by Bill Cosby. They are Helen Hayes, Beth Ferrier and "Chelan" who doesn't want to share her last name.

Good evening to all of you. ALLRED: Good evening Don.

LEMON: Beth, you started out in a consensual relationship with Bill Cosby while he was married but then broke it off? After you had split he invited you to a concert and gave you a coffee, that's the last memory that you have. What happened?

BETH FERRIER: THE ALLEGED VICTIM: Yes. Yes, in 1986 he came to Denver, Colorado to do a show. And he had wanted to pursued me heavily since I had in fact called off the relationship because of his -- he had become incredibly aggressive with me and was constantly wanting to know where I was, wanting to know everything about me. And so I finally agreed to meet with him since I am from Denver, Colorado and that's where he would come often to do his shows.

I agreed to come to a now defunct show there, the turn of the century. And I actually drove myself there Don. Myself, because I wanted to be able to come and go if I needed to. And unfortunately that's the evening that he offered me a coffee and we were going to be having supper before the show and never made supper, never made anything.

LEMON: You said -- Accordingly to you, you said after I drank it I felt dizzy and I loss consciousness. And the next thing I knew hours had passed and I work up in the back of my car alone.

FERRIER: All alone in the back of my BMW, my car. The show was obviously done. It was dark. There was no one around and my clothes were off.

I was sick to my stomach. I was -- I felt like I had -- I don't know, something that horribly had happened to me. And, you know, I have to understand that at that time no one was talking about being drugged and drugging.

I mean I didn't think anything would have happened having a cappuccino which he often prepared for me. So for -- to have that happened, you're caught off guard and suddenly you're left alone and you're questioning yourself again, he was a woman. What did I do wrong? What was that about?

And to me, then having to climb out of the car and try to -- because I was too ill to even drive. So then I have to crawl upstairs and try to find the security guards, two security guards are obviously aware of where I was because they actually drove my car home with me on the back of my car and another gentleman followed.

LEMON: And they helped you home? According to you they help you home.

FERRIER: They did help me home.

LEMON: This is all very emotional to all of you. And Chelan, I want to go to you. You were 17 year old, aspiring model working at a hotel in Las Vegas.

CHELAN, THE OTHER ALLEGED VICTIM: I was 17 years old. I was 17. I was 17 years old about 10 days before my 18th birth day.

LEMON: And he was going to help you with an aspiring modeling career, with your career and he end up giving you what he said was cold medicine? And then what happened?

CHELAN: He said it was antihistamine. It was antihistamine. He gave it to me and I take it with a shot of amaretto. He start rubbing on me and someone came in and took some pictures of myself.

And someone just came in and said they're like a stress therapist and he had me call "uh-uh". And then he came back and they left. After they left he ask me are you OK, are you OK?

And I kept saying yes, but that was kind of groggy. And he gave me something else to drink and escorted me down the hallway. And I believe that's the same room that Lisa (ph) talks about because it was in a Las Vegan Hilton at Elvis Presley's suite. And...

LEMON: And then that's where you believe...

CHELAN: ... I woke up 13 to 16 hours later.

LEMON: Yes. And that's what...

CHELAN: I remember him pinching my breast, grouching. It was a grouch like a wild pig. But I could not move, I couldn't respond. And I remember feeling something warm at the side of my leg and when I woke up I just had the Hilton Hotel roll going and no clothes.

But before that I had on clothes.

LEMON: And then you said he offers you money -- according to you he offered you money, gave you $1,500 to buy you something nice and then...

CHELAN: He had it on the table already.

LEMON: So I'm going to go to Helen now. Helen, you know, you said that Bill Cosby followed you and some friends around while you were at the celebrity tennis tournaments back in 1973. And he tract you down on a restaurant and you said, I believe you said you tried to avoid him. So you went -- you changed your reservation to several different restaurants but he caught up with you.

HELEN HAYES, THE OTHER, OTHER ALLEGED VICTIM: Right. We did. We went into different bars and different restaurants. We saw him all day at Saturday. He sure had followed us around and we thought it was more like stalking us. And we kind of laugh but we felt very safe because it was day time. But then at night when we decided to go to dinner, just the three of us, we never left each other side at all.

But he -- we went in other restaurants and bars and he finally found us in one restaurants and he came up behind me and grabbed his body against my back and then he put his right hand over my shoulder and I grabbed all of my right breast and I think in those days, it was called grumping back in 1973, today it's called sexual battery... LEMON: And it's...

HAYES: It was...

LEMON: It was -- It's very...

HAYES: ... at the Clint Eastwood's...

LEMON: A very inappropriate behavior.

HAYES: ... celebrity to...

LEMON: Right.

HAYES: But then, absolutely, I looked at him, I said, what do you think you're doing? Why do you think you have a right to do that to me? And he just looked at all three of us and he said well, have a nice dinner and he walked out.

LEMON: I got to ask Gloria this. I got -- Gloria, you know, what did you want to see happened now? You were asking that he what? Wave his rights, the statue of limitation so that this woman can have their day in court.

ALLRED: Exactly I asked him to agree not to assert the defense of statue of limitations. In other words, not to say that if they sued him, that it would be time barred and unless he agreed, of course, those case would be dismissed. There would be no point in following in the first place. I have been in touched with his attorneys, he has not accepted my offer which he could have accepted but he is not.

So he apparently would like to fight this out in the court of public opinion. Except of course in the lawsuits which have been filed against him, where he will have to be in court. But that what he wants to do so he is going to perform this (inaudible) in Denver. I'm going to be there. I'm going to do a teaching and then speak out and inventing people in Denver to come and meet me at the Crawford Hotel at 2:00. They have the RSDP (ph) in advance. But...

LEMON: OK.

ALLRED: ... they can do that. And then we're going to talk about Bill Cosby and what the allegations are against him. What his reaction has been and the impact on the alleged victims, because women matter and rape is not a joke and we didn't find his last joke in Canada to be funny.

So we're going to protest also outside of the Buell Bill Theater in Denver at 5:00, following our teaching and speak out.

LEMON: Chelan, why are crying?

CHELAN: Because it's not a joke. I'm so angry. I'm angry at Phylicia Rashad of saying that we're liars. I'm angry with him for not taking a stand and accepting what he changed and what he did to all of us. It changed my whole life and I got a piece of it back and only (inaudible) just to confront him and I would love to see you in the court of law. I want to see you in the court of law. I want to see you eye to eye. I want him to be a man he was when he took away my youth, and accept the women that who I am now and I'm ready to take them on.

LEMON: Chelan?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.

LEMON: Chelan, Beth, Helen, Gloria, thank you. Sorry about the delay in the crosstalk but thank you so much.

ALLRED: Thank you Don. And I know that Phylicia Rashad did not say that the woman were lying but she said that it was that the legacy is what matters and not the women essentially, so I just want to say women do matter. We care about (inaudible)...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We matter.

LEMON: Thank you very much, all of you. Thank you.

Next Beverly Johnson and what she says Bill Cosby allegedly do to her back in the 80s. Also five women who accuse Bill Cosby of assault meet face to...

JOHNSON: I have been drugged. It was very powerful. It came on very quickly and I was just looking at him and I just asked him the question that you are a MF, aren't you?

LEMON: How many of you were lowered by -- remember Bill Cosby giving you a pill of some sort?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many of you were drugged? Allegedly...

LEMON: All of you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... all of you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Welcome back. I'm Don Lemon. This is our CNN special The Cosby Show, A Legend Under Fire. Again and again, women have come forward telling the same shocking stories about Bill Cosby and perhaps the best known is Beverly Johnson, the first African-American model to appear on the cover of American Vogue in 1974. She told her story to Kyra Phillips. And to be clear, Beverly claims, Cosby drugged her but she believes she avoided the sexual assault.

Here is Phillip. Phillip joins me now. You got the first interview with one of the well known Cosby accusers because of her high profile. There has been so much attention. What did she told you about the story.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I mean, it was a game changer when she talked. I mean for full disclosure, I've known Beverly for number years. We're very involved with the Global Down-Syndrome Foundation. We're big advocates with this group. And when she told, she decided to go with (inaudible) and tell the story, I said "Well, do me a favor, would you give us the first live interview on CNN?"

And she did and it was explosive. And it added us totally different level of credibility to the story. And so we decided to go deeper into her background for life, the allegations and here is just a portion of that special that we did.

PHILLIPS: Beauty is a fickle business and models have just a short time at the top.

JOHNSON: I didn't know what I was going to do after modeling which was supposed have been four to five year career, so I just decided to try everything.

PHILLIPS: For Beverly Johnson, auditioning for the highly rated Cosby show could open up possibilities.

JOHNSON: There wasn't a bigger figure in entertainment -- in the entertainment industry than Bill Cosby.

PHILLIPS: But she didn't get a role. The audition she says ended with a traumatic event.

JOHNSON: I knew that I had been drugged and I knew that I had been drugged by Bill Cosby.

PHILLIPS: It was a secret she kept for decades, fearing repercussions.

JOHNSON: There is this powerful man in an industry that I would like to be a part of and I didn't think I had a chance of winning.

PHILLIPS: But that would change as more than a dozen women went public this fall giving Johnson the courage to come forward.

Tell me about that moment when you said, "All right, I'm going to do it. I am going to let the secret be revealed."

JOHNSON: When all of these happened, you know, looking at the women coming forward and how brave they are, I had to speak up. I just had to, but I vacillated. I'm going to do it, I'm not going to do it, I'm going to do it, I'm not going to do it.

And I realized that what a hypocrite I would be if I didn't say something.

PHILLIPS: So she wrote a first person account for Vanity Fair, "Bill Cosby drugged me. For a long time I thought it was something that only happened to me, and that I was somehow responsible. So I kept my secret to myself, believing this truth needed to remain in the darkness."

Johnson also spoke at (inaudible) on CNN's New Day.

JOHNSON: He needed to know that as women, we just weren't going to just, you know, stand by and let him get away with what he thought he was going to get away with.

SACAREZ: She recounted Cosby inviting her to his Manhattan Brownstone for an audition, the role of a patient of the lovable obstetrician, Dr. Cliff Huxtable.

She says before they rehearsed, Cosby insisted she drink a cappuccino from his fancy espresso machine.

JOHNSON: It was very powerful. It came on very quickly. The room started to spin, my speech was slurred, and he placed his hands on my waist. At that point, I knew he had drugged me. And I was just looking at him, and I just asked him a question that you are a M.F., aren't you.

PHILLIPS: She says it went no further, but does say a seething Bill Cosby dragged her to the street and sent her home in a cab. "As I thought of going public, a voice in my head kept whispering, Black men have enough enemies out there already, he certainly don't need me fanning the flames."

JOHNSON: It was very difficult for me to come to the point where I wanted to speak out.

PHILLIPS: What's the one thing you'll always remember from that moment, when you say that he drugged you. What's the one thing you'll never forget?

JOHNSON: I think it would be someone taking your power because you're powerless.

I don't want to see anything happen to Bill Cosby. What I want to see happen is that women come out and speak their truth.

LEMON: Very powerful, very powerful. And remember we have not got a response, a public response from Bill Cosby's attorney even though CNN lawyers have been in communication with him. And Kyra is back with me, a powerful story. Some of the women that I interviewed said the same thing, told the same stories and said they felt that they were freed now to finally be able to come forward and tell their truth.

PHILLIPS: Yes. You know, speak their truth. Isn't that powerful, and you know, we mentioned that we haven't heard from Bill Cosby directly. He has declined numerous requests to come on this show, other shows to speak to these charges. It seems that the strategy with his team is spending time and money, trying to discredit the accusers, and you know, smearing the media, including CNN.

And actually, when we were, you know, working on this Beverly Johnson Special, we received a letter from Cosby's attorney, attacking our reporting, demanding that we speak to two individuals that he said would defend Bill Cosby against Beverly Johnson's accusation, and of course, I did that. I spoke to them. Neither had any specific knowledge about Beverly Johnson's claims nor knew her at the time of the alleged incident, when it occurred, and what's more that they've both had criminal past, these two men. One spent time in prison in connection with the robbery of his former client. The other one plead guilty to threatening to choke Beverly Johnson to death, which really let us, you know, to question their credibility, and that's why we just didn't feel like they belonged in our special.

LEMON: Yeah, yeah. Beyond that, let's talk about -- you and I have worked together. We have the same pop references. Beverly Johnson and Bill Cosby are part of our youth The Cosby Show. It is...

PHILLIPS: Famous.

LEMON: ... amazing...

PHILLIPS: Inspirational.

LEMON: ... and unbelievable to see this is going on.

PHILLIPS: It -- well, and you and I have talked so much about breaking barriers and our heroes in life, and how important diversity is. And just thinking back at that quote, when Beverly said, "I was afraid to come out and even now because here's a powerful black men, and this isn't the time..."

LEMON: It's the last thing he did -- the black men...

PHILLIPS: Yeah. I mean, my gosh, it's like we need to come so much further in this...

LEMON: We've gone further.

PHILLIPS: ... discussion.

LEMON: We've gone far, but we got a long way to go.

PHILLIPS: A long way to go. I mean, for women's right and that's what Beverly is hoping to do is really be game changer, where women feel more comfortable to speak the truth.

LEMON: Good to see you.

PHILLIPS: Good to see you too, Don.

LEMON: Great interview. Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Thank you.

LEMON: Thank you very much. We got a lot more to come. Next, five women who accused Bill Cosby of sexual abuse come face to face to tell their story. What they alleged he did to them, and how they say it's changed their lives.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We suffered...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... the hundreds, collectively hundreds of years

of horrible intestinal, emotional strife because of what this man put all of us through, and...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... the hundreds that haven't come forward.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Welcome back everyone. I'm Don Lemon and this is our special, The Cosby Show, A Legend Under Fire.

More and more women have come forward over the past few weeks with shocking accusations of what they say Bill Cosby did to them. Now, for the first time, a group of those women, they're right here right now, face to face, sharing their stories, and you can see my colleague, Alisyn Camerota is here with me. She has interviewed many of these accusers, many of the women who in the room.

Joan Tarshis is here, Barbara Bowman is here, Kristina Ruehli is here, Patty Mastin, we'll it P. J., that's she likes to be call and also Victoria Valentino. We didn't put the monitors on, right, Alisyn because I sort of expected that you would had the reaction that you did when we put the picture on him on. And that was?

JOAN TARSHIS: Revulsion really.

CAMEROTA: You try never to see the Bill Cosby's picture, right?

TARSHIS: I sort of go like this. I couldn't get shut down on my peripheral vision.

LEMON: You can't look at him. Can you Barbara?

BARBARA BOWMAN: Well, we were comparing which picture sparks that scratchy, awful feeling.

CAMEROTA: And which one does?

BOWMAN: For me?

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

BOWMAN: That one.

CAMEROTA: Why?

BOWMAN: Because that was the face that I saw and that was the age.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just above the young one over there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Me too.

LEMON: What's going on?

VICTORIA VALENTINO: Me?

LEMON: Yeah.

VICTORIA VALENTINO: I can't look at him. 44 years when his picture went across the screen, when it was in a magazine or a newspaper or I heard his name mentioned, I have to walk away, change the channel. I can't -- I just...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I couldn't watch the Cosby show. I never watch it.

VALENTINO: It makes my stomach twist.

PATTY P.J. MASTEN: It makes me sick to my stomach just to look at him. Just sick to my stomach.

You know, he is pretty much probably the world's greatest actor because he fools a lot of people. Fooled a lot of people. Yup.

CAMEROTA: In the latest round of accusations, Barbara, you were the person, on November 30th you published a piece in The Washington Post and you came forward first. Are you surprised at the basic title wave that -- I mean, more than a dozen women followed you?

BOWMAN: Yeah. Some more and more to come.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yup.

LEMON: Do you think so?

BOWMAN: Oh yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh yes.

CAMEROTA: I want to ask...

MASTEN: I...

CAMEROTA: What makes you think there are other women?

VALENTINO: After I came out, I started getting all of these private messages on Facebook from different people who were coming out to me,. P.J. was one of them. And...

CAMEROTA: Because you both shared the playboy bunny connection?

VALENTINO: Yes.

LEMON: Did you ever tell he (inaudible) that he know about?

MASTEN: No. I told my boss, my immediate boss after it happened. Her replied to me was, do you realize that this is Hefner's best friend? Nobody is going to believe you. Shut your mouth. That was I what I was told by corporate, to keep my mouth closed.

LEMON: And so many of you did for quite a long time. Alisyn and I want to ask you guys something. We want to do a show off hands. Put your hands up if it -- this is a true story. Do you mind if I start first?

CAMEROTA: Go ahead.

LEMON: How many of you were lured by Bill Cosby, the promise support that it of would help your career?

CAMEROTA: Three of you he said it would help your career.

VALENTINO: Well, he didn't promise to help my career but my girl friend who was one of the original chocolate bunnies and my bunny trainer told me -- introduced me because my son had just died and I was beginning to run out of money and I'm an actor. And she said, maybe he can get you with job. He played the Playboy Club Circuit. And so she set up an appointment with him on his trailer of -- on the lot.

And she said, and take a picture of your little boy, you know. And she was actually his godmother.

CAMEROTA: How many of you were drugged? Allegedly...

LEMON: All of you.

CAMEROTA: ...all of you.

VALENTINO: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And that seems to had been from the women that we spoken to his M.O. There are allegations that he would drug women.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yup.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.

CAMEROTA: Do you -- who of you remembers being drugged? Tell me.

TARSHIS: Well, I remember both times. I remember having one Bloody Mary tacked with beer and as I've said he called it a red eye. And I woke up -- I don't know how long later with him taking off my clothes. And you don't pass out from one small drink.

LEMON: How many of you -- you said, you can't look at me. You didn't watch the Cosby Show. Is it something you think about everyday? No?

VALENTINO: I'll tell you what it is though Don, it's like a subliminal sound track. I don't think about my son dying 44 years ago everyday but it's always there just under the surface, you know.

LEMON: Hugh Hefner issued the statement reading "Bill Cosby has been a good friend for many years and the mere thought of these allegations is truly saddening. I would never tolerate this kind of behavior regardless of who was involved."

When we come back, more of the women who are accusing Bill Cosby.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Welcome back to our special here. It's he Cosby Show, A Legend Under Fire. I'm Don Lemon, Alisyn Camerota is here with me.

And back with us now with five women who are speaking out about Bill Cosby and what they say he did to them.

Joan Tarshis is here, Barbara Bowman, Kristina Ruehli, Patty Masten or P.J. and also Victoria Valentino is here with us as well.

CAMEROTA: And P.J. after all this time, you said there is one case that made you want to come forward now.

MASTEN: When I heard about this young girl, a 15-year old girl being drugged and raped by him in Hefner's mansion all bets are off for me, that's a child. That was a little girl.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm done.

CAMEROTA: Through his attorney, Bill Cosby refutes that story and he says that she's trying to extort money from him.

MASTEN: Well, he refutes every single story that has come out. That is not a surprise to anyone of us, not one of us.

CAMEROTA: How many of you show off hands, have tried to get money out of Bill Cosby?

None of you. How many of you would ever take money from Bill Cosby?

LEMON: Interesting...

CAMEROTA: People claimed that they are in for money. They have tried to get money from Bill Cosby.

RUEHLI: He gave 20 bucks to take a cab from me and gave me 20 bucks for the cab.

CAMEROTA: All right.

LEMON: Yeah.

RUEHLI: To me, it would be a form of content from him.

LEMON: And this isn't about -- it's not about sex, it's about power.

RUEHLI: Yes.

MASTEN: He's a predator. He goes after women and he is not even a man. If you have to drug a woman to have sex with her, that's not even a man. He's a coward. He's a despicable coward.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's a serial rapist...

(CROSSTALK)

RUEHLI: Yeah. He...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No question.

RUEHLI: ... has the same M.O. with all of us. He identifies a vulnerable victim. He then gets them alone or lures them into place that sometimes where other people are in proximity.

He drugs them. He does his thing with him -- them and then sometimes he waits for them to wake up, so he can hurt, yet more contempt.

BOWMAN: That's a good point Don, because the man could not possibly be acting alone. And what I mean by that is, the man has power, and wealth, and fame and has many people in impenetrable circle, many layers of circles of people that are protecting him, that has created this hermetically sealed bubble of protection.

LEMON: What about his wife? What do you...

TARSHIS: Well, they settled that report. When they settled that report she must have known something was going on.

CAMEROTA: You mean, the 2005 case (inaudible) they settle up and there were 13 Jane Does...

TARSHIS: Exactly.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: You were one of them who came forward, so you think that that alone she must know something.

TARSHIS: Well, I would think that the man being as ill as I believe he is, I feel sorry for her. I don't know why she's stayed in the marriage unless she was forced to, out of fear.

CAMEROTA: What do you all want to see happen now to him?

MASTEN: I Emmys taken away from him.

CAMEROTA: You want his awards taken away?

MASTEN: Absolute. Take those awards away from him. He's a predator.

TARSHIS: What I want to happen to Bill Cosby is the happening.

CAMEROTA: And what is that?

TARSHIS: For him to lose base with the public. I had said that I've lost my anger towards the man and the resentment towards the man but I wonder if that's really because of what's happening to him now, because this is what I dreamt. This is what I dreamt of for years, until this days.

BOWMAN: They call it karma. They call that karma. MASTEN: That's right.

BOWMAN: We're being restored. Lives are being restored and then that's a beautiful thing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're being validated. For the first time we're validated.

RUEHLI: We have the power now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's right.

RUEHLI: It's was -- rape is about power. And there's another thing, it's not just that he has betrayed us. He has betrayed...

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Community. Black community.

RUEHLI: Every person of color...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everyone.

RUEHLI: ... the breakthrough that he's supposedly made.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's right.

RUEHLI: When he -- what happened to me happen, he was an eye spy. Now, nobody believed he was a spy. But in the Cosby Show...

LEMON: Everyone thinks he's something else.

RUEHLI: Everybody thinks...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is the best.

RUEHLI: ... he is basically a fake, a pretender and behind that mask is sociopath.

LEMON: Camille Cosby responded last month of the allegations against her husband. Her statement reads in part, "There appears to be no vetting of my husband's accusers before stories are published or aired. An accusation is published in immediately goes viral. None of us will ever want to be in the position of attacking a victim. But the question should be asked, who is the victim?"

Well the accusations against Bill Cosby are having a direct impact on his career. NBC scrapped a sitcom he was developing. Netflix put a comedy special on hold and some of Cosby's stand up performances around the country had been canceled. But apparently, that's not enough for some of Cosby's accusers.

We come back, what they want from him?

MASTEN: I want him to suffer, suffer like we all have suffered all these years. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Welcome back to our CNN Special. The Cosby Show, A Legend Under Fire. One of the most powerful moments of our conversation came when I asked the five women who accused Bill Cosby of sexual abuse, whether they think Cosby should speak out now. Listen.

Do you think he should say something? Yes, no or you don't care. What do you think?

RUEHLI: I don't care.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.

RUEHLI: As long as it's long and painful, and I think that he never cared what happened to us.

LEMON: Barbara.

BOWMAN: No.

MASTEN: We suffered hundreds -- collectively, hundreds of years of horrible intestinal emotional strife because of what this man put all of us through and the hundreds...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's right.

MASTEN: ... that haven't come forward yet. I want him to suffer, suffer like we've all suffered all these years. You can ask any of these women, how are you relationships? How are your marriages? How are your jobs? How are your psyches?

CAMEROTA: How are your dreams?

MASTEN: How are your dreams?

TARSHIS: I'm having nightmares. I've been waking up to 3:00 in the morning, 4:00 in the morning having nightmares thinking bad things are going to happen.

CAMEROTA: We also just want to say that through his attorney that he has said that this didn't happen. These are all implausible. They're fantastical.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So we're liars. We're liars.

VALENTINO: He took advantage of my grief over my little boy drowning to get to my girlfriend, my roommate because he had a thing for her.

(CROSSTALK)

VALENTINO: He drugged us both.

LEMON: What about when he lost his son? You just mentioned your son, when...

VALENTINO: Yeah.

LEMON: ... he lost his son, did you think about him?

VALENTINO: Oh, believe me, when I heard that I felt terrible for his wife. I of course felt terrible for his child who was an adult. But man, I have to tell you I want Karma.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I did too.

VALENTINO: And I wondered every minute, "Did he ever think of me and my child and what it meant for me to lose my only child and for him to do that to me within four months of my child drowning, my six year old biracial child?"

TARNISH: Nancy Grace did something really interesting. She said, "Are all of these women lying and one person telling the truth or is one person lying...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.

TARNISH: ... and all of these women telling the truth."

CAMEROTA: Interesting.

BOWMAN: I think it's remarkable that, first of all, we're very, very grateful to be here and to be heard and to watch the masses finally listening.

RUEHLI: You know, with me I escaped him. And I'm comfortably retired with eight grandchildren and my life is as happy as anyone's life could be, but this was important. There is lot of things to be said about power and the abuse of it, distrust and betrayal. I didn't need to do this for any reason whatsoever, except to support and encourage others.

CAMEROTA: We thank you all for your voice and for sharing your very personal story with us. And we wish you all best of luck.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.