Raven-Symone on fake story about her and Cosby: ‘Keep me out of this’
Did you hear that story about Raven-Symone and Bill Cosby? Well, she did, and she’s calling it “disgusting.”
“I was NOT [taken] advantage of by Mr. Cosby when I was on the Cosby Show! I was practically a baby on that show and this is truly a disgusting rumor that I want no part of!,” the 28-year-old wrote Wednesday on Instagram after a gossip-parody website published a story saying she’d filed molestation charges against the comedy legend.
“Everyone on that show treated me with nothing but kindness. Now keep me out of this!”
The fake story, headlined “Raven Symone Files Molestation Charges Against Bill Cosby,” included legit background information on the current Cosby controversy, but only after a few paragraphs claiming the actress was saying she’d been drugged and raped by her TV grandpa in the years after “The Cosby Show” wrapped.
The site gave TMZ credit for the made-up news and included a made-up quote from Raven-Symone’s made-up attorney saying his “client” had stayed quiet for years because she was afraid of being blackballed.
“SMH!! SMH!! Bye! ... Keep me outta this!,” she said in a shaking-my-head follow-up tweet that also addressed a typo in her original post.
Cosby, of course, has been hammered recently with old and new accusations of sexual assault. A New Yorker piece in September noted the omission of the allegations from a new biography. A video of a comic’s bit calling the actor a rapist was posted online in early October (h/t Washington Post), followed by a first-person account from one of his accusers late last month, followed by the Nov. 10 launch of an ill-conceived and short-lived meme generator on his website. Model and reality-TV personality Janice Dickinson is among the new accusers.
The 77-year-old’s lawyer issued a statement over the weekend calling the allegations “discredited” and noted that the “fact that they are being repeated does not make them true.” Nevertheless, business relationships with Cosby have ended and “Cosby Show” reruns have been pulled in response to the controversy.
Other recent headlines on the parody site in question, HipHopHangover, included “Waist Trainers Are The Leading Cause of Stomach Cancer, Experts Say,” “Flight Carrying Justin Bieber Makes Emergency Stop In Liberia, Passengers Quarantined” and “Ebola Infected Factory Worker Bled Into Batch Of Chocolate, Potentially Affecting Millions of Candy.”
Follow Christie D’Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ and Google+. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs.
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