Jaleel White describes former friendship with Bill Cosby as 'hell of a hindsight thing'

For those who missed the episode, Yahoo's Stephen Proctor has you covered on what White, who starred as Steve Urkel from 1989 through 1998, had to say about Cosby:

“Many dinners at his house, breakfasts, I even ran into a rough patch and he’s directly responsible for why I ended up at the William Morris Agency, which became an education unto itself. You go back in time and you realize how close you were to something, and you put yourself in rooms where you realize, his wife wasn't there. That woman was probably there for that purpose. You know, it's a hell of a hindsight thing to look at. It was like, a revered man did a terrible thing and he’s paying the price. It’s just like, I think that’s where we leave it." 

White also noted that he and Cosby's relationship had deteriorated but didn't specify what happened. 

In 2017, during Entertainment Weekly's reunion for the Family Matters cast, White revealed that he had auditioned for The Cosby Show in 1984: "They brought everybody that made the show, all the kids — they probably had us audition over the course of like five or six hours. My agent had been told that they’ve pretty much settled on [me], so I went to the audition thinking I was just going on a last audition. And then, all of a sudden, this little girl walks in."

That little girl was Keshia Knight, who portrayed the youngest Huxtable child named Rudy.

The acclaimed Cosby Show ran for eight seasons from September 1984 to April 1992. The sitcom has lost its shine, however, after its namesake was found guilty on felony sexual assault—among other charges related to drugging and sexually assaulting numerous women over the years—in April 2018 then sentenced to three-to-10 years in prison.

The 83-year-old is expected to serve the maximum sentence, as of November 2019 (h/t USA Today).