‘Cosby Show’ Star Raven-Symone Can’t Remember Filming the Show

Raven-Symone starred in the last three seasons of The Cosby Show, but the former The View co-host can’t remember most of her time on the show. Raven, who was only 4 years old when she started on Bill Cosby’s sitcom, said she later learned her lack of memory from that time was “disassociation” after she went to therapy. After The Cosby Show, Raven moved on to Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper and later found stardom again as a young adult in Disney Channel’s That’s So Raven.

In an interview for TV One’s Uncensored, released earlier this month, Raven, 35, said she “honestly” doesn’t remember her time on The Cosby Show. “I don’t remember working with – I don’t remember a scene. I don’t remember anything while it’s a rehearsal or a camera,” she said, reports the Atlanta Black Star. “I remember the smell of the soul food coming out of his [Cosby’s] dressing room…When we open the show in front of a live studio audience you had to walk up these stairs and we came down that classic staircase, I remember standing up there and playing with the wood before I went down.”

She has no memory of what happened once cameras started rolling. “I do not remember as soon as the camera starts, something clicks off and I do what I’m trained to do,” she said. When she was 18, Raven thought something was wrong about her lack of memories from The Cosby Show, she went to therapy. She was told it was Due to “disassociation, I just black out,” she said. “I turn into who I’m supposed to be when the camera’s on, and then I come back to when ‘normal’ life resumes. Again, it’s bottled up.”

Elsewhere in the Uncensored interview, Raven explained why she agreed to join The View in 2015. She was only on the show for parts of three seasons, leaving in 2016. She wanted to go in a different direction from other actors of her generation. “Everybody that I grew up within the industry around my age bracket, Lindsey [Lohan] all these people, made their transition to adulthood by oversexualizing themselves,” Raven explained, reports Vibe. “I decided to go into The View to show my adulthood by my brain, one. Two, Whoopi [Goldberg] asked me. Okay! You don’t say no to an EGOT. And I just love her so much, I just wanted to be underneath her. Very difficult decision, one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had.”

On The View: Behind the Table though, Raven said she was “catfished” into joining the show, reports The Hollywood Reporter. Symone said she felt pressure during her time on the show because she was the only LGBTQ member of the cast, but Goldberg and the producers helped her get through the most difficult times on the show. “There is something amazing about behind the scenes of The View that kind of puts the salve over all the BS that’s going on on-camera that made it tolerable to stay as long as we did,” she said.