Hannibal Buress responds to Cosby rape joke controversy

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Stand-up comedian Hannibal Buress isn’t backing down from comments he made about Bill Cosby during a recent performance in Philadelphia.

During the show, Buress performed a joke saying that Cosby had committed rape. The bit garnered national media coverage, and on Tuesday, during a discussion with Howard Stern, the comedian addressed the interest in his joke.

While on The Howard Stern Show, Buress said regarding Cosby’s alleged history of sexual assaults, “It’s just information that’s out there. I said it and I gotta stand on it, but it is an interesting situation.”

Buress’ joke centered on how Cosby was hypocritical for telling black people to pull their pants up and for comedians not to curse on stage when he was accused of committing rape.

Earlier in 2014, Barbara Bowman spoke with the magazine Newsweek about how Cosby had assaulted her on numerous occasions. Bowman told the magazine that, “I was assaulted a number of times from age 18 to 19.

Cosby would warn me before out-of-town trips, ‘You aren’t going to fight me this time, are you?’” These allegations echoed statements made by thirteen previous women who have said that Cosby also sexually assaulted them. Some of the cases allegedly occurred as far back as the 1970s.

A sexual lawsuit was filed against Cosby by Andre Constand, with the case settled out of court in 2006. The famous comedian, who starred as Dr. Heathcliff “Cliff” Huxtable on the hit family series The Cosby Show from 1984 to 1992, has not publicly commented on the allegations. Cosby has never been formally charged with sexual assault.

Buress also said during the interview that it wasn’t his plan to start a national discussion or controversy, but the joke was “just something that I was doing in that venue right there.” He also indicated that the Cosby joke had been used at various other venues “off and on” during the past six months.

Buress summed it all up pretty well on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/hannibalburess/status/524542974622195712