Bill Cosby has been at the center of an increasing number of rape and sexual assault allegations over the past few weeks (you can find detailed timelines here and here), and the story keeps getting uglier. While these claims are far from breaking news – some go back to a 2006 lawsuit involving 14 women (13 anonymously agreed to testify, but the case settled out of court) – more women have come forward since a Hannibal Buress joke calling Cosby a rapist went viral last month and Barbara Bowman, one of the anonymous women from the 2006 case, wrote an article for The Washington Post called “Bill Cosby raped me. Why did it take 30 years for people to believe my story?” Since then, more women including supermodel Janice Dickinson have come forward publicly with allegations against Cosby (a total of 16 women overall), and while Cosby has refused to comment, he has been dumped from his appearances on The Queen Latifah Show and Late Show, and Netflix has decided to indefinitely postpone the release of his standup special Bill Cosby 77.
Cosby also had an NBC sitcom in the works that had been in development since last summer, and today the network confirmed that it’s scrapped the project entirely. Cosby has not been convicted and statutes of limitation prevent these women from getting anything out of their accusations other than throwing Cosby to the court of public shaming, but all allegations considered, the evidence (and public opinion) is definitely not on Cosby’s side. Plus, between his #CosbyMeme attempt gone wrong last week, radio silence when asked about the allegations during a recent NPR interview, and a resurfaced YouTube clip of his 1969 routine called “Spanish Fly” about drugging girls’ drinks making the rounds this week, it looks like no one is doing a better job of shaming Cosby these days than the man himself.
