Ensa Cosby, daughter of legendary comedian Bill Cosby, has died, a family spokesman said Monday. She was 44.
Ensa died Friday in Massachusetts of renal disease, Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt told The Informer.
“The Cosby family thanks many people for their prayers for their beloved and beautiful Ensa,” Wyatt said.
Her death comes just one week before hearings in her father’s criminal retrial are set to begin. The comedian is accused of sexually assaulting a former Temple University employee more than 14 years ago. A jury failed to reach a verdict in the trial last year and a new trial has been scheduled for April 2.
Last year, Ensa spoke to the Black Press, saying that her father had been publicly lynched in the media.
“I strongly believe my father is innocent of the crimes alleged against him and I believe that racism has played a big role in all aspects of this scandal,” she said.
Ensa once worked alongside her father, appearing on the iconic “The Cosby Show” in 1989 as a girl at a party. That episode, titled “I’m In with the In Crowd,” featured Ensa with Cosby’s TV daughter Vanessa and a group of girls playing the Alphabet Game while chugging alcohol.
Cosby and his wife of more than 50 years, Camille Cosby, had five children, Erika, Erinn, Ensa, Evin and Ennis, their only son. Ennis Cosby was murdered in 1997 while changing a flat tire along a darkened off-ramp of the Interstate 405 freeway in Los Angeles.