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Comedian Eddie Griffin created a stir recently when he applied the national debate about systemic racism — propelled by complaints of police brutality in Black communities — to embattled entertainer Bill Cosby.

Cosby was arrested last week and charged with sexual assault. He is accused of drugging and assaulting former Temple employee Andrea Constand at his Elkins Park, Pennsylvania mansion in January 2004. The charges stem from a deposition released last summer in Constand’s civil suit that was filed in 2005. In that case, Cosby testified under oath to giving drugs to women, specifically Quaaludes, in order to have sex with them.

An estimated 50 women have accused Cosby of sexual assault. But Cosby, through his lawyers, has denied the allegations — some of them decades old. But last week was the first time that the aging entertainer was ever charged.

Some of his longtime fans and supporters, however, have never bought into the allegations.

Eddie Griffin is one of them.

“They want us all to have an asterisk by our name,” Griffin said in a video interview with hip-hop website VladTV. “Nobody leaves this business clean.” 

Griffin also tried to dismantle the drugging charges, saying Quaaludes were used to help people even out after cocaine binges in the 1970s, when most of the sexual assaults were said to take place.

“First off you have to remember this was in the ’70s. I’m old enough to remember the ’70s. The ’70s is a different time,” Griffin said.

The View‘s Whoopi Goldberg

On Monday, the talk show co-host said she wants to hear from Cosby himself before believing anything.

“Look, I’m glad it’s happening because I sort of feel like whenever you have people saying this is what happened, this is what happened, this is what happened, I want the court—I want to hear it,” Goldberg said near the end of Monday’s segment, writes The Daily Beast. “I want the courts, I want everybody to be able to ask questions because we’ve heard a lot, but we have not heard anything from his side.”

Damon Wayans

The comedian’s defense of Cosby may be the most outrageous comments yet, calling the alleged victims “unrape-able” during an appearance on 105.1’s The Breakfast Club Friday morning.

“If I was him, I would divorce my wife, give her all my money, and then I would go do a deposition,” Wayans said. “I would light one of them three-hour cigars. I’d have some wine and maybe a Quaalude, and I would just go off, because I don’t believe that he was raping.”

Waka Flocka 

“Every time a famous minority make it they throw salt in the game,” the rapper tweeted on New Year’s Day.

Phylicia Rashad

In an interview last year on World News Tonight with David Muir, the actress – who played the all-American mom to his all-American dad on the 1970s hit The Cosby Show – cast a wait-and-see attitude.

She corrected remarks attributed to her in Roger Friedman‘s Showbiz 411 column, where she was quoted as saying, “Forget these women.” 

“That is not what I said. What I said is, ‘this is not about the women. This is about something else. This is about the obliteration of legacy.'”

Faizon Love

Over the summer, the comedian best known for playing Big Worm in the Friday movie, said “Cosby was the victim of a conspiracy to bring him down,” notes The Washington Post.

“WHY YALL WORRIED ABOUT THAT BULLS— BUT NOT WORRIED ABOUT WHATS GOING ON NOW,” Love tweeted. “You people kill me with this s—! This withe [sic] boy walks into a church and kills 9 people you not mad at that, but this upsets you F— YALL.”

CeeLo Green

Gawker reports that in 2014, CeeLo, accused of rape himself, said he could not judge Cosby.

“It doesn’t seem fair,” said CeeLo, that people are interpreting Cosby’s near-silence on the dozens of allegations as evidence of his guilt.

“But you can’t defend yourself in that capacity, you know what I’m sayin’? You just have to let facts be facts, and so on and so forth … none of this seems fair. It’s just unfortunate because he’s so beloved to so many people,” the “F*ck You” singer told TMZ.

The artist pleaded no contest earlier this year to putting ecstasy in a woman’s drink, and then claiming that “Women who have really been raped REMEMBER!!,” according to Gawker.

BONUS: Jill Scott…who later withdrew her support of the comedian

The Grammy Award-winning star drew fire after famously defending Cosby on Twitter in 2014.

Then last year, she rebuffed Cosby after the release of his 2005 deposition, in which he admits to plying women with Quaaludes in order to have sex with them.

PHOTO CREDIT: Getty, Twitter

SEE ALSO:

Bill Cosby’s Lead Attorney Monique Pressley: “My Client’s Not Guilty”