Lenny Kravitz Says That Bill Cosby Fired Lisa Bonet From “A Different World” Because She Got Pregnant
I always used to wonder what it said in that letter that Lisa Bonet read in the opening credits of A Different World. If Bill Cosby was in charge of props, it might have read: “YOU CAN BE PREGNANT OR EMPLOYED BUT NOT BOTH.” Because Lenny Kravitz, Lisa Bonet’s ex-husband and the father of her child at the heart of this story, is here to bring up the long-standing story that Bill Cosby kicked Lisa off A Different World because she got pregnant. According to Lenny, that’s 100% exactly why Lisa was gone after one season.
A Different World premiered in 1988 as a spin-off of The Cosby Show that focused on Denise Huxtable’s first year at the fictional HBCU Hillman College. Then in the second season, Denise suddenly dropped out of Hillman, returns home for a second, then goes to Africa to be a wildlife photographer’s assistant. After, oh, about nine months, she returns to the Huxtable home with her new surprise husband, Lt. Martin Kendall, and his daughter Olivia.
All this happened in the time after Lisa married Lenny Kravitz in 1987. In December 1988, Lisa gave birth to Zoe Kravitz. There have been stories about why Lisa left A Different World, most of them being about how Bill was a complete asshole to Lisa. Debbie Allen, who was hired to revamp the show in season 2, has said previously that when Lisa informed her of her pregnancy, Debbie wanted to work it into the series, and that she was excited about the idea of Denise being a single mom (since A Different World tackled harder-hitting story lines). Debbie said that when she and Lisa went to tell Bill, he replied: “Lisa Bonet is pregnant, not Denise.”
Lenny Kravitz speaks about his relationship with Lisa in his new memoir Let Love Rule, and he commented on the situation between Lisa, Bill, and her pregnancy. Page Six says that Lenny echoed what Debbie said, which is that a pissed-off Bill told Lisa that she is pregnant, but Denise Huxtable is not. Lenny writes that Bill “allowed” Lisa to return to The Cosby Show because there was no way she was staying on at A Different World. And can you believe that that kind of controlling behavior made things bad on set? You’re shocked, I’m sure.
“But from then on, her relationship with Bill was tense and ultimately untenable,” Kravitz writes.
When Denise mysteriously moved to Asia with Martin, she wasn’t even invited back for the finale. The biggest irony in all of this is that while Bill was clutching his pearls at the indecency of Denise Huxtable having a single mom story arc on A Different World, he was a rapist behind-the-scenes. Denise Huxtable could have gotten pregnant, and left the baby with Dwayne Wayne so she could focus on selling speed and running an illegal gambling syndicate out of her dorm room, and it still wouldn’t have been nearly as bad as what her real-life boss was doing.
As for what Bill is up to, CNN says that he’s still going ahead with the appeal on his 2018 conviction for aggravated indecent assault. Bill has tried to appeal before, to the superior court, which they denied. He gets to ask for an appeal based on legal technicalities. via CNN:
A previous ruling by the high court granted the former actor and comedian the ability to appeal two issues in the case. One issue pertains to the witnesses who testified about alleged assaults that were not part of the charges. And the second involves the prior district attorney’s decision not to charge Cosby a decade ago.
Bill’s legal team argued that by bringing in five witnesses that didn’t have anything to do with the situation he was on trial for, he was being set up as looking like a predator. They also argued some of the testimony was from alleged incidents that took place long before Andrea Constand’s assault in 2004. CNN says that a Pennsylvania court will hear arguments from Bill’s legal team in December of this year. That court could possibly overturn his assault conviction.
December, huh? Do we think Bill will be required to show up in person, or will this be a Zoom meeting situation? Because we know Bill is very afraid of the coronavirus, and who knows when the pandemic will be over. If there was any justice in this world, that judge would require Bill to be present and in-person. And on that day, maybe someone tells Bill a little lie about how the whole courthouse just so happened to have run out of Lysol wipes. And maybe he’s told his meeting will take place in a room where at least 10 people had recently gathered to eat lunch. And maybe someone who is good at faking a cough is heard saying, “I’m 99% sure it’s just a cold!” If Bill really has the gall to fight that conviction, he’s got to sweat a little first.
Pic: YouTube