Sometimes when I read articles or watch videos on the Internet, I learn phrases and expressions that are new to me. One I learned in recent 16 days or so is "ride or die wife." Some people who Comment or make videos on You Tube (vlogs) say that Bill Cosby's wife Camille is "a ride or die wife," because she stands by him no matter what.
The Bill Cosby situation is strange, on more levels than one. Some aspects of it are mysterious. Perplexing.
(The accuser with the earliest time-stamp on the story she recounts, that I've read -- it was in 1965. Mr. and Mrs. Cosby got married in 1964. That's what I don't get. Fifty years of this stuff?!)
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If you go on Google and type in,
Oprah Interviews Camille Cosby,
there's an interview from the year 2000. At that time, the main Obstacle in the Cosbys' life together was the 1997 murder of their only son, Ennis Cosby. He was at the side of a freeway near Los Angeles changing a flat tire, and somebody tried to rob him at gunpoint.
The perpetrator said he got impatient because Ennis Cosby wasn't getting the money out fast enough, or something...plus I think it said the murderer, a young Russian immigrant, had taken drugs earlier that night....
In the interview, Mrs. Cosby says her son was driving her Mercedes.
Here is what she says: So I said, "Ennis, just be careful." I even asked him not to drive my Mercedes, but he did. You see?
Oprah: That was your car?
Camille: That was my car. But I knew a young man would want to drive a fast, sporty car, so I rented another car for him... because, frankly, I was more concerned about the police dealing with a young black male driving a fancy car than I was about someone else bothering him....
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I had two thoughts about this:
1. Ennis Cosby should not have been driving a Mercedes because isn't an expensive car like that just a magnet for criminals if you're in an urban area? Drive a Ford Tempo or something, that won't draw attention. Stay under the radar.
And 2., he was almost 28 years old, why was his mom renting a car for him? Don't most of us buy (or rent) our own stuff by that age? (But I guess when the Big Money is There, people want to help, or whatever...)
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In another part of the 2000 interview, Oprah asks how to you teach your daughters what it means to be a woman, how do you define it? And Mrs. Cosby answers,
" " I think it is a combination of things -- assertiveness, being loving, being smart about what you know, not pretending to know something if you don't know it. It is listening well, and it is demanding to be heard.
Oprah: I love that.
Camille: Women are told just to listen. Even little girls are told that.
Oprah: And to be nice.
Camille: Exactly. You demand to be heard. Being a woman...it is communicating well; it is having positive, reciprocal relationships with your lover, your husband, your friends, your family. In other words, if you give, you want to get back. I don't believe in unconditional love.
Oprah: I've always heard that we should love unconditionally.
Camille: No. That creates the long-suffering female. I think you have the right to not love someone if that person is not lovable.
Oprah: That is so powerful.
Camille: And that concept has to apply to a marriage, a lover, a business associate, a publicist. ... I think it applies to everyone in your life. [end quote]
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A couple of things to notice, there:
One is, the press is now, 18 years later, indeed making her out to be the "long-suffering wife."...
And, this -- "...having positive, reciprocal relationships with
your lover,
your husband,
your friends,
your family."
(Kind of a double-take, the reader does there...)
and she says "lover" again -- "...that concept has to apply to
a marriage,
a lover,
a business associate,
a publicist."
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This may give some clarity on the Cosby marriage. Did anyone pick up on it at the time, when this interview appeared in Oprah's Magazine?
I know I've read this interview before, years ago, and I did not pick up on that.
It sure didn't hit the buzzy-wires of the gossip press. Maybe they don't read articles, just copy each other's headlines and pile on....
-30-
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