For decades The Cosby Show was billed as a groundbreaking sitcom depicting an upper-middle-class black American family rich in love, honesty and laughter.
During its eight seasons and years on the air, it was hailed as a show that shone in the face of racial stereotypes that permeated the media in the 80s and early 90s.
While eponymous star Bill Cosby, 86, has been embroiled in controversy in recent years, stemming from numerous allegations of sexual misconduct and assault dating back to the ’70s, actress Keshia Knight Pulliam says the iconic series should still be held in high esteem.
“You can’t take away from us the work that we’ve all done together,” Knight Pulliam, 44, tells PEOPLE exclusively, referring to himself and co-stars Phylicia Rashad, Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Lisa Bonet.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner is ‘still proud of the legacy’ of ‘The Cosby Show’
The cast of The Cosby Show.
Knight Pulliam — who hosts Married at First Sight after the party and was recently featured in a new public announcement by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation — shot to fame playing Cosby’s youngest daughter, Rudy Huxtable. And the show, she says, “was bigger than one person.”
Bill Cosby has received a new lawsuit from singer Morganna Picard over allegations that the actor drugged and raped her
In 2018, after more than 60 women came forward with various allegations against him, Cosby was convicted of three counts of aggravated indecent assault after Andrea Constand testified that he drugged and sexually assaulted her at his home in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania in 2004.
Sentenced to 3 to 10 years, Cosby served more than two years of that sentence before his conviction was overturned in 2021 because a judge found that a plea deal he made with a previous prosecutor invalidated his case. Cosby’s defense rejected all the allegations against him.
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Bill Cosby.
William Thomas Cain/Getty
Knight Pulliam hopes the show can still be celebrated for changing the television landscape.
“Many actors wait their whole lives for such an opportunity,” she says. “I’m grateful to have been a part of a work that truly transcended generations and still teaches lessons that are relevant today.”
Keshia Knight Pulliam on Marrying Her Real-Life Movie Sibling and Raising Kids on a Farm: ‘We’re Doing It’
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Keshia Knight Pulliam. Alan Singer/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty; Paras Griffin/Getty
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Knight Pulliam says her daughter Ella Grace, 5, is watching and learning those same lessons today: “Now my daughter can enjoy the work that I did, and it’s funny because she’s so much like me.”
As for plans to mark the show’s 40th anniversary next year, “I don’t know,” she says. “There’s nothing we’re working on or discussing at this point, so we’ll have to see.”
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Source: HIS Education