Bill Cosby Has a Few Words for the Court

Bill Cosby has not said much about the sexual assault accusations that have dogged him for years, but when he was convicted on Thursday of drugging and assaulting Andrea Constand he decided to say a few words in the Norristown, Pa., courtroom. Including a crass one aimed at the prosecutor.

The 80-year-old actor, a fixture in American family entertainment for decades, erupted in response to a suggestion by the Montgomery County district attorney, Kevin R. Steele, that his bail should be revoked because he was a potential flight risk and owned a plane.

“He doesn’t have a plane, you asshole!” Mr. Cosby shouted. It was all the more startling coming from a man once beloved as the mild Dr. Cliff Huxtable on his hit NBC sitcom, the Jell-O pudding pitchman and the whimsical creator of the character Fat Albert.

Judge Steven T. O’Neill told Mr. Cosby to pipe down — “Enough of that!”

But he disagreed with the notion that the actor seemed likely to skip town. He said Mr. Cosby could be released on $1 million bail but should surrender his passport and stay in his home nearby.

The court outburst drew a lot of attention because — beside the vulgarity — it was one of the rare times Mr. Cosby has said anything in public in connection with the case or the dozens of sexual assault allegations made against him.

Though he has denied all of the accusations made against him, he did not testify in his own defense during the trial that ended on Thursday.

Here are a few other times he has spoken out.

‘I would appreciate it if it was scuttled’

Mr. Cosby refused to answer questions about sexual assault during a taped interview with The Associated Press in 2014. After the interview was over, he told the reporter that he did not want anyone to see the tape.

Instead, The A.P. released the tape, shining new light on the decades-old allegations and helping to ignite a firestorm that caused NBC and Netflix to cancel two of Mr. Cosby’s television projects.

“There is no comment about that and I’ll tell you why,” Mr. Cosby said, when asked about the allegations. “I think you were told, I don’t want to compromise your integrity, but I don’t talk about it.”

After the interview ended, while the camera was running and Mr. Cosby was still wearing a microphone, he said he wanted the tape to be disposed of.

“I would appreciate it if it was scuttled,” he said. “I think if you want to consider yourself to be serious, that it will not appear anywhere.”

When the reporter said he would have to ask his boss what to do with the tape, Mr. Cosby said to one of his handlers, standing slightly off camera, “I think you need to get on the phone with his person. Immediately.”

‘This is all about celebrity’

Shortly after the A.P. interview was made public, the Radar Online site published the audio of an interview Mr. Cosby did with The National Enquirer in 2005 about sexual assault allegations against him by Tamara Green, who said he drugged and groped her in 1970.

Mr. Cosby did not explicitly deny the allegations but said he thought the media was treating him unfairly because he was famous. He was especially upset by a report that he had hired a lawyer to defend him from Ms. Green’s accusation.

“I guess that a celebrity trying to protect him or herself is not supposed to use every ounce of protection?” he said. “But this is all about celebrity, period!”

Mr. Cosby also bemoaned the potential impact of the allegations on his loved ones.

“Who really wants to put his or her family in a position of information coming out publicly that will cause great emotional stress, challenge?” he asked. “The choices that the family, friends have made in looking at him or her as a good person, a wonderful person, a person to be trusted?”

‘I don’t talk about it’

In a meandering interview with ABC News in 2015, Mr. Cosby, who frequently lectured African-American young people on personal responsibility, said he expected to be called a hypocrite.

“It’s interesting. When I talk to people they will say, ‘This is a situation that’s unprecedented.’ I, my family, my friends, I have been in this business 52 years,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. And reality is the situation. And I can’t speak.”

The interviewer, Linsey Davis, said during the segment that she did not think Mr. Cosby understood the “media furor” produced by the dozens of women who, by that point, had accused him of sexual assault.

“I can’t speak on that,” he said, when asked about the charges. “I just don’t want to argue. I don’t talk about it.”