Bill Cosby's former TV wife, Tony Award-winner Phylicia Rashad, has come out in defense of the embattled comic legend, who for months has weathered several women's allegations that he had drugged and raped them in decades past.

"Forget these women," Rashad, 66, told Roger Friedman of Showbiz411.com, at a Manhattan luncheon for the movie "Selma." "What you're seeing is the destruction of a legacy. And I think it's orchestrated. I don't know why or who's doing it, but it's the legacy. And it's a legacy that is so important to the culture."

Rashad said she believes the recent accusations from at least 17 women, some of them tracing their complaints to a 2006 lawsuit against Cosby that was settled out of court, are part of a conspiracy. "Someone is determined to keep Bill Cosby off TV," she said. "And it's worked. All his contracts have been canceled," she said, referring to NBC terminating an upcoming project and Netflix postponing a comedy special.

She added that her and Cosby's 1984-92 NBC comedy "The Cosby Show" "represented America to the outside world. This was the American family. And now you're seeing it being destroyed. Why?"

Meanwhile, three more women have accused Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them years ago, The Associated Press reports. Attorney Gloria Allred held a news conference Wednesday in Los Angeles with the women who described unwanted encounters with the comedian between 1981 and 1996 in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

Allred says the accusations are too old for criminal charges or lawsuits, but she reiterated her challenge that Cosby waive the statute of limitations to allow lawsuits. A call to Cosby's lawyer was not immediately returned.

Cosby was scheduled to perform Wednesday night in Kitchener, Ontario, the first of three Canadian dates.