Garcelle Beauvais was apprehensive about including her decades-old “experience” with accused sexual predator Bill Cosby in her memoir, “Love Me As I Am.”
“I’m a little scared ’cause I’m sharing and I’m telling stories that I’ve never told,” Beauvais admitted to co-star Dorit Kemsley on this week’s episode of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” which was filmed several months before the book’s release in April.
Beauvais, 55, cautioned that some of her anecdotes “may shock people,” but Kemsley commended her friend for putting them on paper anyway.
“There are stories in the book that I never talked about,” Beauvais elaborated in a later confessional. “I had an experience with Bill Cosby. That was really scary.”
The “Coming to America” actress was an 18-year-old model living in New York City when she allegedly got a call from her agency letting her know that Cosby, who is 30 years her senior, wanted her phone number.
“At the time, he was everybody’s dad. I mean, listen, he was bigger than life,” she told Andy Cohen in a SiriusXM radio interview in June, saying she gave her team permission to pass along her information.
The then-star of “The Cosby Show” called her 20 minutes later, according to Beauvais’ claims, and said, “‘I’ve seen you around, and I think you would be great for the show. I’m gonna offer you a small part, but I also think education is really important.’”
Beauvais told Cohen she recalled thinking it was “really weird” for someone she didn’t know to say she needed more education, but she did end up scoring the role of a nurse in a 1986 episode of the hit sitcom.
The Bravolebrity claimed she was later invited to the Emmy winner’s Manhattan townhouse.
“‘I wanna talk to you about your career. I wanna talk to you about your education. We’ll go over a scene together,’” she recalled him allegedly telling her. “You know — the whole setup that he does.”
After arriving at his place, Beauvais claimed Cosby offered her a drink. “I was a baby,” she noted of her underaged self at the time. “I was like, ‘Uh, sure.’”
Beauvais alleged the comedian handed her a glass of Sambuca, an Italian anise-flavored liqueur that is usually colorless.
“I remember that very well because I didn’t drink, and I had never heard of Sambuca,” she recalled.
“I remember taking a sip and not feeling great. And I don’t know, I just didn’t feel right,” she explained, confirming to Cohen that she now “absolutely” believes something was slipped into her cocktail.
“And something told me to get out of there. And I literally got up, and I ran out of there. And I got into a cab, and I went to my apartment.”
Beauvais said she was “freaked out” and called her mom right away.
“And what was interesting is, the next week, he had a big ‘I love my wife’ party,” she shared, adding that she “never heard from him again.”
The reality star said the encounter “turned out to be a cautionary tale about really listening to your gut instincts.”
As for why she did not come forward with her story sooner, Beauvais said she didn’t want her experience to cloud those of the approximately 60 women who — in mostly 2014 and 2015 — accused Cosby of rape, drug-facilitated sexual assault, sexual battery, child sexual abuse and sexual misconduct.
“When all of that was being revealed about how he treated women, I didn’t have anything concrete to add to the story, and I didn’t feel like I should have done that,” the actress explained.
“People would’ve thought maybe I was just jumping on the bandwagon to jump on the bandwagon, and I didn’t want to do that. And also, my boys were little, and I didn’t want to subject them to that kind of stuff.”
Cosby and Beauvais did not immediately respond to Page Six’s requests for comment.
For most of Cosby’s alleged victims, the statute of limitations had passed by the time they went public with their claims.
But in 2018, he was found guilty of drugging and molesting Andrea Constand at his Pennsylvania home in 2004.
However, last June, his sexual assault conviction was overturned based on a technicality, and the comedian, now 85, was released from prison.
“I have never changed my stance nor my story,” he tweeted as a free man. “I have always maintained my innocence.”
