Mark Whitaker says he was 'wrong' not addressing allegations in Cosby biography

theGRIO REPORT - Mark Whitaker, the author of the biography Cosby: His Life and Times sent out a tweet indicating he was wrong to not pursue the sexual assault allegations further in his book...

Luther Vandross was outed as gay after his death.

Mark Whitaker, the author of the biography Cosby: His Life and Times, which came out in September, sent out a tweet indicating he was wrong to not pursue the sexual assault allegations further in the book.

Although the book, which spans 545 pages, talks about Cosby’s infidelities, Whitaker does not delve into the allegations. The omission has angered some, with furious commenters flooding the book’s Amazon page with 1-star reviews questioning Whitaker’s decision.

Originally, Whitaker explained his reason to The Daily Beast for omitting the allegations as follows:

I wasn’t going to reprint the allegations. I had a couple of reasons for that. You can do that and say here’s an allegation, and here’s a denial, but given the nature of the allegations, the allegations would stick. As a biographer, you’re really trying to say ‘I’m painting a scene for you. Here you are in the room. This is what happened.’ And if you do enough reporting, you can actually do that. And if you can’t do that, you don’t do that.

As the controversy surrounding the allegations has grown, however, Whitaker admitted he has changed his stance on the matter in a tweet on Monday:

The tweets were a response to David Carr, a New York Times columnist, tweeting out a link to his recent column titled “Calling Out Bill Cosby’s Media Enablers, Including Myself.” In the piece, Carr cites Whitaker as one such enabler, talking about how Whitaker doesn’t mention the allegations, despite the fact that four of them had gone on the record at the time of its release.

Although more than a dozen women have alleged that Cosby assaulted them, the 77-year-old has not yet commented on the matter publicly. His lawyer recently said that the allegations were “increasingly ridiculous and completely illogical.”

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