With the aide of a cane and his attorneys at his side, Bill Cosby stumbled into a Pennsylvania courtroom last week, nearly tripping over a raised cement sidewalk amid a horde of photographers and reporters.
Conspicuously absent was the disgraced comedian’s wife of more than a half-century, Camille Cosby, who has vowed to no longer be her husband’s crutch, family insiders told The Post.
“My husband doesn’t deserve jail, but he does deserve every bit of the hell he’s going through now even though he is still pretending that this hell doesn’t exist,” the anguished Camille confided, according to a close family source.
That facade was in full force Friday, when Bill Cosby, 78, answered the phone almost jovially. “I’m well, I’m very well,” he told a Post reporter, before declining to be interviewed.
The source, who’s been close to the family for more than two decades, said the infidelities of “America’s Dad” were well-known to Mrs. Cosby, 71, who simply insisted that her husband be discreet and not shame her.
“But, she has been thoroughly humiliated and believe me, her anger isn’t directed at the women,” the source said. “Bill has humiliated her, and the affairs he’s had have gotten out of hand and this [criminal charge] is him reaping what he’s sown.”
After the first few of a torrent of women publicly accused Cosby of drugging and raping them, Camille scoffed at their claims. Acting both as a wife and Cosby’s business manager, she directed her husband’s high-powered attorneys to “get back out in front of this.”
But as the list of alleged victims swelled to more than 50, Camille “was sickened,” another family source said. Several of the women have sought to depose her.
“She’s been fighting giving a deposition, but that’s not because she wants to keep protecting Bill, it’s because it’s so humiliating,” the family source said.
“She’s still married to Bill because of all of the court stuff and now the criminal stuff,” the source said. “She knows that you can’t force a wife to testify against her husband and she doesn’t want any part of this at all.”