In 2014, Bill Cosby, once considered a US national treasure, was at the start of a rapid and dramatic fall from grace as more and more accusations of sexual assault came to light.
One man who thought the situation was “sad” and was quick to share his thoughts on how Cosby should handle the situation was the now Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
In a 2014 interview from the red carpet for an event he was attending with his wife Melania, the billionaire offered Mr Cosby some PR advice, encouraging him to defend himself against the multiple sexual assault allegations instead of remaining silent.
“I think it’s very sad and frankly I don’t think he’s handling it well,” the 70-year-old told E! News. “He should say something because he’s being accused of terrible things and to have absolutely no comment, I think he’s getting very bad advice from a PR standpoint and he should do it differently. He’s not doing a very good job of handling it.”
Mr Trump’s advice is not wholly different to the mantra he appears to live by after the string of scandals which have hit his campaign over the last year. The real estate mogul is always quick to offer a response and/or defence to controversies, his most recent being a 2005 recording of him saying sexist and derogatory things about women and boasting that he was such a “star” he could grab women “by the p***y”.
Mr Trump has since apologised, saying he has said and done things he regrets while also dismissing the conversation as “locker room banter” and deflecting the apology statement back to Hillary Clinton.
Mr Cosby has denied all of the 50-plus historical sexual assault claims made against him. In December of last year, he was charged over just one of the allegations. The 79-year-old is accused of drugging and molesting Andrea Constand at his home in 2004, a trial date has been tentatively set for June 2017 in Pennsylvania.
