Mike Coppola/Getty Images; Michael Loccisano/D Dipasupil/Getty ImageNot everyone who's known Bill Cosby for years is standing by him.
The widow of actor-comedian Richard Pryor—who like Cosby (or unlike him now, depending on who you ask) is considered a master at stand-up, but whose material ultimately became more fiery, profane and cutting-edge than Cosby's—did not mince words when giving her opinion of her late husband's fellow entertainer in a recent interview.
Talking about the dynamic between the two on the podcast Alison Rosen Is Your Next Best Friend, Jennifer Lee Pryor said, "Richard was dirty on the outside, but he was a good person on the inside. Bill, f--k. Clean. Oh, 'clean.' He hated Richard because he 'worked dirty.' Bill worked clean, so therefore, you know—Bill's just a f--king hypocrite, and dirty on the inside."
Among their collaborations, Cosby and Pryor co-starred in the 1970s comedies Uptown Saturday Night and California Suite.
In recent months, more than two dozen women have come forward (some of them not for the first time) with stories accusing Cosby of sexually assaulting or attempting to assault them 20 or more years ago. Cosby's attorneys have categorically denied all claims leveled at the former sitcom star.
Jennifer contrasted the misperceptions that shadowed her husband, who was vocal about his battles with drugs and various other demons, with the squeaky-clean image Cosby maintained for so long.
"It was a well-kept secret that Bill f--ked everything that moved," Jennifer said. "This kind of s--t that we're finding out about is beyond. I wasn't aware of this kind of business. There are people in the business who were aware of it and they're coming out now."
Pryor's widow praised Hannibal Burress, who during a standup set cracked the joke about Cosby's rumored history with women that seemingly set the stage for all that has come since. About the blind eye that had seemingly been turned before, she added, "It's never cool to bring a black icon down. People say, 'We don't have a lot of them, leave him alone.'"
Asked what Pryor, who died in 2005, might have thought of the Cosby scandal, Pryor biographer Scott Saul told The Daily Beast in December, "Pryor told an interviewer in 1967—just as he was about to break definitively with the 'Cosby school of comedy'—'They always say "be clean." They want you to be something that really doesn't exist at all.' For him, the profane and the profound were intimately connected: if you wanted to go deep, you had to be willing to risk getting your hands dirty, too.
"All of which is to say that I think that Pryor, for all his admiration of Cosby as a performer, would have been suspicious of how Cosby took on the politics of responsibility and portrayed himself as the epitome of moral rectitude over the past few decades. He had a fine eye for moral hypocrisy, and I know that a glaring example of it would not have escaped his notice."