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| NBC pulls Bill Cosby sitcom amid renewed sexual assault allegations | NBC pulls Bill Cosby sitcom amid renewed sexual assault allegations |
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| A new sitcom billed as a multi-generational “family comedy” has become the highest-profile casualty of the renewed swirl of rape allegations against the comedy star Bill Cosby after NBC confirmed that it has decided to scrap the project. | A new sitcom billed as a multi-generational “family comedy” has become the highest-profile casualty of the renewed swirl of rape allegations against the comedy star Bill Cosby after NBC confirmed that it has decided to scrap the project. |
| An NBC spokesperson, Rebecca Marks, told Associated Press that the project “is no longer under development”, with no further embellishment. | |
| NBC’s decision not to move forward with the pilot takes the storm that has been gathering around Cosby to a new force factor. It is the fourth, and by far the most important, media appearance or deal to have been severed, beginning with a cancelled visit to the Queen Latifah Show last month, and followed by the dropping of his slot on the Late Show with David Letterman that had been scheduled for this week. | NBC’s decision not to move forward with the pilot takes the storm that has been gathering around Cosby to a new force factor. It is the fourth, and by far the most important, media appearance or deal to have been severed, beginning with a cancelled visit to the Queen Latifah Show last month, and followed by the dropping of his slot on the Late Show with David Letterman that had been scheduled for this week. |
| Hours before NBC confirmed it was pulling the plug, Netflix said it had postponed a special broadcast marking the actor’s 77th birthday. The streaming channel did not give reasons for delaying transmission of the tribute broadcast, which was scheduled for 28 November, issuing a curt statement that read: “At this time we are postponing the launch of the new standup comedy special Bill Cosby 77.” | Hours before NBC confirmed it was pulling the plug, Netflix said it had postponed a special broadcast marking the actor’s 77th birthday. The streaming channel did not give reasons for delaying transmission of the tribute broadcast, which was scheduled for 28 November, issuing a curt statement that read: “At this time we are postponing the launch of the new standup comedy special Bill Cosby 77.” |
| As an overtly “family” show that would have featured Cosby playing the patriarch to three daughters and several grandchildren, NBC’s planned sitcom was always vulnerable to the billowing accusations that have stuck to the star since they were first raised in 2005. In that year Andrea Constand, a former manager of the women’s backetball team at Temple University in Philadelphia, Cosby’s alma mater, said that she had been drugged and sexually assaulted at his home. | As an overtly “family” show that would have featured Cosby playing the patriarch to three daughters and several grandchildren, NBC’s planned sitcom was always vulnerable to the billowing accusations that have stuck to the star since they were first raised in 2005. In that year Andrea Constand, a former manager of the women’s backetball team at Temple University in Philadelphia, Cosby’s alma mater, said that she had been drugged and sexually assaulted at his home. |
| She pressed a civil suit that was settled the following year. | She pressed a civil suit that was settled the following year. |
| In the course of that lawsuit, 13 other women were reported in court documents to have come forward. In recent weeks, the allegations have resurfaced, with several women renewing their accusations that Cosby sexually assaulted, raped, or in some cases drugged them. | In the course of that lawsuit, 13 other women were reported in court documents to have come forward. In recent weeks, the allegations have resurfaced, with several women renewing their accusations that Cosby sexually assaulted, raped, or in some cases drugged them. |
| The model and TV presenter Janice Dickinson said on Tuesday that she had been drugged and raped by Cosby in 1982 after meeting him to discuss a possible role in The Cosby Show, his hugely popular TV programme. Dickinson said Cosby had given her wine and a tablet after he invited her to dinner. “The next morning I woke up, and I wasn’t wearing my pyjamas, and I remember before I passed out that I had been sexually assaulted by this man,” she told the US magazine show Entertainment Tonight. | The model and TV presenter Janice Dickinson said on Tuesday that she had been drugged and raped by Cosby in 1982 after meeting him to discuss a possible role in The Cosby Show, his hugely popular TV programme. Dickinson said Cosby had given her wine and a tablet after he invited her to dinner. “The next morning I woke up, and I wasn’t wearing my pyjamas, and I remember before I passed out that I had been sexually assaulted by this man,” she told the US magazine show Entertainment Tonight. |
| “The last thing I remember was Bill Cosby in a patchwork robe, dropping his robe and getting on top of me. And I remember a lot of pain. The next morning I remember waking up with my pyjamas off and there was semen in between my legs.” | |
| Asked why she was speaking out now, she said: “I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do, and it happened to me, and this is the true story. I believe all the other women.” | |
| Cosby’s eponymous comedy series about the large and loving family of a Brooklyn doctor was the top-rated programme on US television for five years in the 1980s. | |
| His lawyers have previously denied similar accusations against him, and one, Martin Singer, called the Dickinson claims an “outrageous defamatory lie”. | |
| He has never been charged with any of the alleged crimes. | |
| So far, the hugely popular star has sought to weather the storm in part by ignoring it and in part by summarily dismissing the allegations. At the weekend he gave an interview to NPR on an art exhibition to which he was contributing his personal collection, at the end of which he was asked about the claims; he responded by saying nothing, holding a silence that lasted up to five seconds. | |
| After that appeared to backfire, drawing more media attention to the subject rather than dampening it down, Cosby’s lawyer put out a statement saying that the star “does not intend to dignify these allegations with any comment”. The statement was scathing of the women’s claims as “decade-old, discredited allegations”. | |
| But the statement also appeared to have backfired. Andrea Constand evidently objected to the implication that her initial complaint had been “discredited”, forcing a new joint statement signed by both Cosby’s and Constand’s lawyers to be posted on the Cosby website. | |
| It said that the previous statement “was not intended to refer in any way to Andrea Constand. As previously reported, differences between Mr Cosby and Ms Constand were resolved to the mutual satisfaction of Mr Cosby and Ms Constand years ago.” | |
| The latest controversy was sparked after a fellow African American comedian, Hannibal Buress, referred to Cosby as a “rapist” during a standup show in Philadelphia several weeks ago. | |
| After video footage of that performance went viral, a number of women came forward to accuse Cosby of assault. Joan Tarshis, an actor turned journalist, said Cosby had drugged and raped her twice in 1969 when she was 19. | |
| Writing in the Washington Post on 13 November, artist Barbara Bowman said she had been repeatedly raped by Cosby after she met him as a 17-year-old aspiring actor in the mid-1980s. She told her agent and a lawyer, who did nothing, she said, which discouraged her from going to the police. It was only after Constand brought her case that she felt confident to speak out. | |
| “Still my complaint didn’t seem to take hold,” wrote Bowman. “Only after a man, Hannibal Buress, called Bill Cosby a rapist … did the public outcry begin in earnest. The women victimised by Bill Cosby have been talking about his crimes for more than a decade. Why didn’t our stories go viral?” |