Cosby Fallout Timeline

Hannibal Buress did­n’t real­ly say any­thing about Bill Cosby that was­n’t already out there with the help of a Google search.

But for what­ev­er rea­son, the crack that the come­di­an made now (or, more accu­rate­ly, in mid-October) in which he referred to the revered fun­ny­man as a rapist was the key tremor that result­ed in the avalanche of alle­ga­tions, con­tro­ver­sy and hind­sight-is-20/20 analy­sis cur­rent­ly envelop­ing Cosby.

The for­mer sit­com star’s attor­ney has flat­ly denied mount­ing claims from, at last count, 16 women who have come for­ward as alleged Cosby vic­tims, but it seems as though every day a new per­son has sur­faced with a sto­ry alleg­ing an assault or attempt­ed assault. Since there has been so much to keep track of in such a rel­a­tive­ly short amount of time (not count­ing the nine years since an accuser sued Cosby for dam­ages), here’s a run­down of every­thing that has hap­pened since Buress’ fate­ful show:

Oct. 16: It seems like longer, but it was just in mid-October when Buress told an audi­encedur­ing a show in Philadelphia : “He gets on TV, ‘Pull your pants up, black peo­ple. I was on TV in the ’80s. I can talk down to you because I had a suc­cess­ful sit­com.’ Yeah, but you raped women, Bill Cosby, so turn the crazy down a cou­ple notch­es.” Someone was record­ing and released the clip to PhillyMag​.com, which post­ed it on Oct. 17. It took a cou­ple of days for the “news” to go viral, but when it did…

Oct 21: In what have been his only pub­lic com­ments about the firestorm he ignit­ed, Buress said on The Howard Stern Show: “This was unex­pect­ed. I did­n’t want to do that [make head­lines]. If I were going to do that, I would have done it on my own. It was­n’t my inten­tion to make this part of a big dis­cus­sion. It was just some­thing I was doing at that venue right then.”

Oct. 30: Cosby’s planned appear­ance on The Queen Latifah Show was can­celed at his request, accord­ing to show pro­duc­er Sony Pictures Television.

Nov. 6: Cosby gives an inter­view to the Associated Press in which he’s asked about past alle­ga­tions and repeat­ed­ly says he has noth­ing to say and there’s no com­ment. Cosby tells the reporter he would “appre­ci­ate it” if this exchange could be “scut­tled” from the tran­script or broad­cast. The inter­view­er said.

Nov. 10: Someone on Team Cosby got the idea to make a meme gen­er­a­tor so that fans could put fun­ny tag lines on seem­ing­ly inno­cent pics of father-fig­ure-era Cosby. Instead, cap­tions refer­ring to the alle­ga­tions against him won the day. That’s prob­a­bly when arti­cles (both old and new) recall­ing how Cosby’s oth­er­wise illus­tri­ous career has been shad­owed by alle­ga­tions that he mis­treat­ed women, plus the eas­i­ly search­able sto­ry about a 2005 law­suit filed against him by Andrea Constand that stat­ed a num­ber of oth­er women who were ready to tes­ti­fy about their own alleged expe­ri­ences, real­ly start­ed pop­ping up. Constand, a stu­dent at Cosby’s alma mater Temple University, accused the enter­tain­er of drug­ging and assault­ing her in January 2004. A set­tle­ment notice was filed in 2008.

Nov. 13: A day after she appeared on CNN Tonight, the Washington Post pub­lished an op-ed by artist Barbara Bowman in which she alleged that Cosby drugged and raped her at his home in 1985 when she was an aspir­ing 17-year-old actress.

Nov. 15: Scott Simon’s inter­view with Cosby for Weekend Edition Saturday airs on NPR. When asked about the con­tro­ver­sy and resur­faced alle­ga­tions, Cosby has noth­ing to say and Simon, who told the come­di­an it gave him “no plea­sure” to have to ask such ques­tions, tells the audi­ence that his guest is shak­ing his head. Meanwhile, an appear­ance sched­uled for Nov. 19 on Late Show With David Letterman is canceled.

Nov. 16: Cosby attor­ney John P. Schmitt issues this state­ment: “Over the last sev­er­al weeks, decade-old, dis­cred­it­ed alle­ga­tions against Mr. Cosby have resur­faced. The fact that they are being repeat­ed does not make them true. Mr. Cosby does not intend to dig­ni­fy these alle­ga­tions with any com­ment. He would like to thank all his fans for the out­pour­ing of sup­port and assure them that, at age 77, he is doing his best work. There will be no fur­ther state­ment from Mr. Cosby or any of his representatives.”

Nov. 17: Schmitt and an attor­ney for Constand release this adden­dum: “The state­ment released by Mr. Cosby’s attor­ney over the week­end 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. Neither Mr. Cosby nor Ms. Constand intends to com­ment fur­ther on the matter.”

• Entertainment Tonight airs an inter­view with Janice Dickinson in which the for­mer mod­el alleges that Cosby drugged and sex­u­al­ly assault­ed her in 1982 and that she want­ed to include the sto­ry in her 2002 auto­bi­og­ra­phy but was pres­sured by Cosby’s attor­neys to leave it out. Cosby attor­ney Martin Singer issues a state­ment call­ing her sto­ry a “com­plete lie.”

• Netflix announces the post­pone­ment of the launch of the planned com­e­dy spe­cial Bill Cosby 77.

Nov. 19: NBC pulls the plug on a devel­op­ment deal with Cosby, who was in talks to play the patri­arch in a pro­posed multi­gen­er­a­tional fam­i­ly sitcom.

• TV Land pulls reruns of The Cosby Show from its schedule.

• Raven-Symoné, who played lit­tle Olivia on The Cosby Show, slams a hoax sto­ry that claimed Cosby molest­ed her as “a dis­gust­ing rumor I want no part of.”

Nov. 20: The afore­men­tioned AP inter­view starts mak­ing the rounds, the news agency stat­ing that the entire exchange was on the record and no agree­ment was made to with­hold any of Cosby’s com­ments at any time.

• Martin Singer calls a Facebook post, in which one Linda Joy Traitz accused Cosby of try­ing to rape her more than 40 years ago, “the lat­est exam­ple of peo­ple com­ing out of the wood­work with unsub­stan­ti­at­ed or fab­ri­cat­ed sto­ries about my client.”

• Rumor Fix pub­lish­es alle­ga­tions made by Carla Ferrigno, wife of The Incredible Hulk starLou Ferrigno, that Cosby attacked her when she was a teenag­er in 1967.

• Singer slams a sto­ry giv­en to TMZ by One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest actress Louisa Moritz, call­ing her claim — that Cosby forced his penis into her mouth while they were in the green room back­stage at The Tonight Show in 1971 — a new “point of absurdity.”

• Cosby Show pro­duc­ers Tom Werner and Marcy Carsey say in a state­ment: “The Bill we know was a bril­liant and won­der­ful col­lab­o­ra­tor on a show that changed the land­scape of tele­vi­sion. These recent news reports are beyond our knowl­edge or comprehension.”

• Cosby does his standup show in the Bahamas in front of a cheer­ing audi­ence, jokes that he’s an “evil man.”

Nov. 21: Model-actress Angela Leslie becomes the eighth woman to come for­ward post-Hannibal Buress, telling the New York Daily News that Cosby got her drunk and made her fon­dle him in a Las Vegas hotel in 1992.

• Las Vegas’ Treasure Island hotel announceds that a Nov. 28 Cosby per­for­mance has been can­celed “by mutu­al agree­ment.” The Virginia Theatre in Champaign, Ill., and the Tacoma Center in Washington state cross Cosby’s sched­uled appear­ances in April 2015 from the sched­ule. The Diamond Desert Casino in Tucson, Az., can­cels Cosby’s Feb. 15, 2015, appearance.

• The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art states that there is no plan to can­cel or alter its “Conversations” exhib­it, sched­uled to run until 2016, fea­tur­ing a num­ber of pieces from Cosby and his wife Camille’s per­son­al collection.

Nov. 18: Joan Tarshis tells CNN Tonight’s Don Lemon that Cosby sex­u­al­ly assault­ed her when she was 19

• Bruce Castor, a for­mer dis­trict attor­ney of Alabama’s Montgomery County tells the Daily Mail that he want­ed to pros­e­cute Cosby when Constand came for­ward, but he did­n’t have the proof to have the come­di­an arrested.

• Entertainment Tonight airs an inter­view with Janice Dickinson in which the for­mer mod­el alleges that Cosby drugged and sex­u­al­ly assault­ed her in 1982 and that she want­ed to include the sto­ry in her 2002 auto­bi­og­ra­phy but was pres­sured by Cosby’s attor­neys to leave it out. Cosby attor­ney Martin Singer issues a state­ment call­ing her sto­ry a “com­plete lie.”

• Netflix announces the post­pone­ment of the launch of the planned com­e­dy spe­cial Bill Cosby 77.

Nov. 19: NBC pulls the plug on a devel­op­ment deal with Cosby, who was in talks to play the patri­arch in a pro­posed multi­gen­er­a­tional fam­i­ly sitcom.

• TV Land pulls reruns of The Cosby Show from its schedule.

• Raven-Symoné, who played lit­tle Olivia on The Cosby Show, slams a hoax sto­ry that claimed Cosby molest­ed her as “a dis­gust­ing rumor I want no part of.”

Nov. 20: The afore­men­tioned AP inter­view starts mak­ing the rounds, the news agency stat­ing that the entire exchange was on the record and no agree­ment was made to with­hold any of Cosby’s com­ments at any time.

• Martin Singer calls a Facebook post, in which one Linda Joy Traitz accused Cosby of try­ing to rape her more than 40 years ago, “the lat­est exam­ple of peo­ple com­ing out of the wood­work with unsub­stan­ti­at­ed or fab­ri­cat­ed sto­ries about my client.”

• Rumor Fix pub­lish­es alle­ga­tions made by Carla Ferrigno, wife of The Incredible Hulk starLou Ferrigno, that Cosby attacked her when she was a teenag­er in 1967.

• Singer slams a sto­ry giv­en to TMZ by One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest actress Louisa Moritz, call­ing her claim — that Cosby forced his penis into her mouth while they were in the green room back­stage at The Tonight Show in 1971 — a new “point of absurdity.”

• Cosby Show pro­duc­ers Tom Werner and Marcy Carsey say in a state­ment: “The Bill we know was a bril­liant and won­der­ful col­lab­o­ra­tor on a show that changed the land­scape of tele­vi­sion. These recent news reports are beyond our knowl­edge or comprehension.”

• Cosby does his standup show in the Bahamas in front of a cheer­ing audi­ence, jokes that he’s an “evil man.”

Nov. 21: Model-actress Angela Leslie becomes the eighth woman to come for­ward post-Hannibal Buress, telling the New York Daily News that Cosby got her drunk and made her fon­dle him in a Las Vegas hotel in 1992.

• Las Vegas’ Treasure Island hotel announceds that a Nov. 28 Cosby per­for­mance has been can­celed “by mutu­al agree­ment.” The Virginia Theatre in Champaign, Ill., and the Tacoma Center in Washington state cross Cosby’s sched­uled appear­ances in April 2015 from the sched­ule. The Diamond Desert Casino in Tucson, Az., can­cels Cosby’s Feb. 15, 2015, appearance.

• The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art states that there is no plan to can­cel or alter its “Conversations” exhib­it, sched­uled to run until 2016, fea­tur­ing a num­ber of pieces from Cosby and his wife Camille’s per­son­al collection.