Bill Cosby’s wife Camille says #MeToo movement is rooted in racism and accusers should ‘clean up their acts’

Rare interview comes in week Cosby’s conviction for sexual assault was allowed to be reviewed

Camille Cosby, wife of Bill Cosby, has suggested that the #MeToo movement is rooted in racism, adding that her husband’s accusers need to “clean up their acts”.

Cosby provided the rare interview to ABC News after it was confirmed that her husband’s 2018 conviction for sexual assault was to be reviewed by an appeals court.

After saying she was “very, very pleased” with the decision, Cosby added: “The #MeToo movement and movements like them have intentional ignorance pertaining to the history of particular white women – not all white women – but particular white women, who have from the very beginning, pertaining to the enslavement of African people, accused black males of sexual assault without any proof whatsoever, no proof, anywhere on the face of the Earth.”

She said that history has conditioned people to believe that women “tell the truth”, but said that “gender has never, ever equated with truth so they need to clean up their acts”.

After presenter Linsey Davis reminded Cosby that a number of her husband’s accusers were black women, Cosby replied: “Yeah, just joining the group, but I cannot go into that because there are legal ramifications.”

Cosby also compared accusations against her husband to the case of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy lynched in Mississippi in 1955, days after a white woman accused him of flirting with her. Till’s murder was seen as a major catalyst for the civil rights movement.

On Tuesday (23 June), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed to review two aspects of the case against Cosby, including a judge’s decision to let prosecutors call five other accusers to testify about historic encounters with Cosby.

Cosby, 82, was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison after a jury convicted him of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his home in 2004.