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Bill Cosby's spokesman says the comedian thinks prison is an 'amazing experience'

Posted at 4:18 PM, Feb 12, 2019
and last updated 2019-02-12 17:18:38-05

Despite the circumstances, Bill Cosby said his time in prison is an "amazing experience," his press spokesman Andrew Wyatt said in a TV interview.

Wait, really?

"Yeah, he used the term amazing experience," Wyatt said.

Wyatt's interview with WCAU in Philadelphia provides new details of Cosby's time behind bars at SCI Phoenix, the prison outside Philadelphia. Cosby was sentenced in September to three to 10 years in prison for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home in 2004.

The case came after dozens of women came forward with accusations that Cosby had drugged and assaulted them in similar incidents over his lengthy career atop the comedy world.

Cosby was moved to the prison's general population two weeks ago and is now in a single cell without a cellmate, said Amy Worden, press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. He was previously being held in a single cell in a unit adjacent to the infirmary.

Bill Cosby's wife Camille has not yet visited him in prison, and that's just how Cosby prefers it, Wyatt said.

"Right now I'm his only visitor outside of his attorneys, and that's the way he wants it," Wyatt said. "She has not visited him. He does not want her to visit him."

Instead, Cosby prefers to speak to his wife by phone -- three times a day for three minutes each, Wyatt confirmed. The prison, 30 miles outside of Philadelphia, is about a 30- to 45-minute drive from Montgomery County, where Cosby has a home.

'He's mentally strong'

In the NBC10 interview, Wyatt said Cosby has lost weight while behind bars. He wakes up at 3:30 in the morning to exercise in his cell, and also has avoided eating bread or dessert in prison, Wyatt said.

"And he hasn't drank any coffee since he's been in there. Now the funny part about it (is) Mrs. Cosby's been trying to stop him from drinking coffee for 55 years and it took this to stop him from drinking coffee," Wyatt said.

"He's mentally strong. He's just a strong man," Wyatt added.

Wyatt told CNN last week that Cosby is living largely separated from other inmates, except that he has helpers who guide him around because of his vision problems.

"He does not eat in the area with other residents, he does not have a cellmate, and he does not exercise with other residents," Wyatt said last week.

The general population cells where Cosby is being held are arrayed in two stories around a central "day room," where inmates can talk, watch TV or play cards, Worden said. Like all other general population inmates, Cosby must be accounted for in his cell seven times a day.