WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1308 - W. Kamau Bell

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

W. Kamau Bell has talked with Marc before about his life, his comedy and his thoughts about the world. But this time there's a single topic that needs to be addressed: Bill Cosby. Kamau tells Marc why he decided to make the documentary series We Need To Talk About Cosby, the obstacles he encountered in getting it made, the comedians who wouldn't talk to him, and the backlash he's received for making the doc. Kamau also explains what happened when Cosby was released from prison while they were still shooting.  Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life.

When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney Plus. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing with cannabis legalization. It's a brand new challenging marketing category.

legalization. It's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Lock the gates! and ACAS Creative. What the fuck, buddies? What the fuck, Knicks? What's happening? What is happening? I'm getting old. We're all getting old.

Every day goes by, we're a little older. Not bad. It's not bad. But, you know, closer to the end. How are you? I'm sorry, man. It's just, it seems like there's been a lot of past guests passing away lately. It's bound to happen. I mean, you know, people get older

and we've been doing this a while. I mean, we've been doing this over a decade. Some of the people we talk to, we're old when we talk to them, but some of the people who are passing away now are not that old and it's scary and it's sad and it's the way life is sometimes, depending on how hard you live

or the choices you make or just genetics. Sometimes it's shorter than you want. Other times it seems to go on too long. But that's an outsider's point of view. Today on the show, listen up. It's W. Kamau Bell. He's been here five times. I think he's got the record because we don't do repeats that often.

This is the fifth time he's been on the show it's actually for good reason people he directed the new documentary miniseries we need to talk about cosby which i watched and i thought it was great and i wanted to talk to him about the sort of process of of his thinking around it because he's pretty well inserted in the thing he's part of it it. It's his own questioning in a lot of ways that drives it. And there's some people that have been on the show in the documentary talking about Cosby, historian Cliff Nesterov, Chris Spencer, Godfrey. But it's just a provocative and it's a very thorough in a certain way, thorough in the way of the history of Cosby, but also thorough in its enabling the survivors to tell their stories and for you to hear them in a way where they're relatively comfortable and not on a witness stand or in an uncomfortable situation.

And it speaks a lot to give the survivors that much of an outlet to really relax into the trauma and the story. But all in all, it's very provocative, and it really is challenging to people that loved Cosby, which is a lot of people. And it really is about trying to figure out what you do with the monster up against the guy you loved when you were younger or grew to look up to. It's a very good documentary. And I talked to Kamau about it. We were up in a hotel room in San Francisco.

He lives in the Bay Area. It was one of those situations where I don't do a lot of those kind of interviews on the road. I've done a couple lately. I did Roy Wood Jr. and now I did Kamau. And Brendan was with me with Roy Wood. But it was one of these things where we got to talking and I realized about five, six minutes in that we weren't recording it. And it's one, it was one of those moments where I'm like, fuck, God damn it. I'm like, okay, okay.

He's like, I get it. You know, we've all done this before. Yes, we have. Let's start again. The frustrations of being out in the field doing the interviews, but we got it, and we had a great talk. I didn't know how long it would go on for, but it was good. It was good to touch base with an old friend and good to hear about this work.

I mean, the process of making a Bill Cosby documentary, the people that wouldn't talk to him, how many people he had planned to talk to. Also, surprisingly, Bill Cosby gets released from prison before they finish recording. talk to him how many people he had planned to talk to also you know surprisingly bill cosby gets released from prison before they finish recording uh challenges but it's all in there and we kind of give the background in this conversation so i was talking about death and dying and aging So I was talking about death and dying and aging. Yeah, yes, yes.

My dad is, I'm going to go see my dad this weekend out in New Mexico. Check in with him while he still is aware of who I am. But I got a lot of friends who have aging parents. I guess I'm fortunate. I guess, listen to me. What an asshole. I'm fortunate that my folks are still alive. I guess, listen to me. What an asshole. I'm fortunate that my folks are still alive. I can still talk to them, but you see it coming, man. You see it coming. I guess we all know it's coming, but you see it coming and people

are passing away here and there. And I find it's kind of tweaking my brain in the way where I'm like, I got to make sure I'm doing everything I want to do that I can do right now. All I know is I'm exercising too much. And now I've gone on a bender of Girl Scout cookies that I didn't even ask for. They were sent by a kid's sister. I'm not complaining, but I am kind of, because I'm going to have to throw them out. I have nothing against the Girl Scouts. It seems to be a, you know, a tradition, a noble undertaking, but, you know, fuck their cookies. Am I right? I mean, because, you know, you're going to get a few boxes if you buy them, because, you know, it's really more about helping the Girl Scouts out. Give me a crate. You know, I'm just trying to help you guys out. But secretly, you're just feeding the monster. I got all the kinds.

I got all the kinds. All right. So look, Kamau Bell is the host of the United Shades of America on CNN. The documentary series, We Need to Talk About Cosby, is now available on Showtime. He directed that. And I thought it was necessary to talk to him about it. I talked to Chris Spencer a bit about it and then Kamau thanks me for talking to Chris Spencer

and I'm like, why don't I talk to you, man? So this is me talking to Kamau about his documentary, We Need to Talk About Cosmology. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer.

I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, Thank you. means? I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series FX's Shogun

only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply.

Speed. All right, so I watched a documentary and i realized that on some point at some level this this was a personal record so like what you know what drove you to do it like were you sitting around for like two years you know thinking like you know someone's got to deal with this i'm not sure that the comedic community the black community the community at large is really processed properly the the conundrum of how we feel about Cosby. Is there a way to still like the specials? Is there a way to still like the records?

I mean, was that what it was? Were you festering alone for a year and a half, two years? I mean, I think I've been festering since I first started, quote unquote, making it in show business. And every reporter would be like, you know, so who are the comedians you liked growing up and we're talking about when I sort of broke through it was like 2012 2013 right at a time where it was like you couldn't just say Bill Cosby and keep it moving right and so for me it was like as a kid who grew up in Bill Cosby's America and was the perfect age for the Cosby show. And Bill Cosby himself is the greatest standup special for me. I never was a prior guy.

I was always like, no, that's the, that feels closer to me. Yeah. That's, I guess that makes you like Cosby kind of. That's the only way I will take that.

Uh, yeah. Uh, but, uh, that's, but yeah, so it was definitely a thing where I,

I was wrestling with it cause I'd have to do these interviews with people. And you'd have to go, how do I say Bill Cosby without sounding like I'm denying all these accusations? Right. So then you decide that you're going to do it and you pitch it? I mean, just like I said, it's not like a thing that I was like, I went to pitch 9,000 people. It just happened to be the weird thing about if you're in this business long enough, you know, sometimes you end up in the right room at the right time.

And so I was talking to the producers from Boardwalk. We were having a wide open conversation about comedy docs. Right, right, right. And the idea came up, well, how would you do a comedy doc about a comedian who fell? Cosby's at the top of that list. And I always thought, in my own,

when I saw Ezra's made in america oj simpson that's how you'd have to do cosby right and i talked to that guy yeah and i think that there you know that that thing was was something yeah and and like i mean i think personally it's like it's one of my i've re-watched it several times was it four parts right uh five parts seven hours yeah and what was it about that thing that that you thought was so amazing because you first of all because you because every all of us went in going, why would I want to wait to see a seven and a half hour OJ doc? Like there was, he was not compelling enough as an individual. But when you look out at America and go, here's what America was doing at the time, I'm always interested in that.

Like I'm always interested, like how did America sort of create this circumstance, accelerate this circumstance? And then it also had like a lot of deep dive stuff about LA that I had no knowledge about, like Johnny Cochran's young career, Watts, like stuff that you'd be like, why is he telling me about Watts? OJ's not from Watts. And then you would go, oh, but this is interesting.

But how much of it was about this idea that he is presented and what, because it seems to me that with oj that the difference between the the the black and white reaction to the verdict what was different and there was there was a certain amount of like you know who cares what the truth is yes he's ours and you can all fuck off or not even he's ours who cares what the truth is he's black you can all fuck off okay i think some of it was ours what the truth is he's black you can all fuck off okay i think some of it was ours but some it was like just black period just the fact that he's a

that this is you couldn't get this black guy right you got a lot of you got a lot of us you can't get this one right so that you know in in in and i think in that sense when you're dealing with cosby and i think it was very you know careful and and not careful but but correct of you to say like he wasn't just a black guy Cosby was everybody's guy and and that was part of the the the strange thing about his personality and how he designed it and and and right and and also like there there comes to a point where it's like does he even want to be a black guy does he want to be every black guy's black right yeah yeah yeah but but so how how was what was the original concept for structure i mean i didn't think i would be narrating it i didn't think it would be i didn't think it would start on hi my name is the way it starts on

interesting i thought it would be sort of like oh jay simpson i was really like looking forward to the opportunity to step behind and not be in something and so it was really like oh i'll get to actually just be be a director because that's okay so you were going to just line up a bunch of guests which is what yeah like go get the get all the people who would do it who were could and also let's remember cosby was in prison when i started this so it was like yeah i thought oh we can have the discussion now because he's going to either spend the rest of his life in prison or he can get out as a very old man. And so I felt like maybe the time is right for the discussion.

We can get away with it. Behind his back. Behind his back. I thought he would knew about it, but I didn't think, well, let me be clear about this. Cause some people have asked about this.

It's not a conversation with Bill Cosby. It's a conversation about Bill Cosby. No, I get it. And you know, because, but you thought, so how did the booking go the guest booking well I mean I know you got a lot of Godfrey I was like there's Godfrey he's the best thing that's ever happened to God God for Godfrey thank God for Chris Spencer but I didn't know Godfrey had uh he had worked he was part of

the CBS Cosby show that was after he wasby show. He was the warm-up guy. So, yeah. So, when I found that out, I was like, oh, he's connected. Also, Godfrey is an outspoken comedian, so I know he'll have stuff to say. Yeah, he's not afraid of. And he can do impressions. And he can do a good Cosby impression, which we didn't know we would be so excited to have. But then I was like, let's sprinkle that throughout.

It's great to hear. Here's my problem. Because I'm a comic, you're a comic, and I'm watching this. There were moments where I'm like good for godfrey well i was like i hope good for godfrey because he's got it he's also experiencing the uh back the backlash or blacklash so is there yeah man they're really there are a percentage of black people percentage of people first of all but certainly percentage of black people who either they don't believe the survivors, which is its own problem in my mind, or they believe them, but they sort of do this math of like, it is better to have the good that he did than the bad that he did. So I got to ride with it.

Well, I think that was a driving force, it seems, from watching it was that, you know know to give the survivors real time and also for for them to have the opportunity to talk about the one thing they all talked about was like when i heard her i was like oh it wasn't just me when i heard her because that's pretty damning when you got five or six of those yeah yeah and and and i don't think that anybody in in one sort of lump or one sort of context has heard any of those survivors go at length unless you were in the courtroom or wherever those things were or or you were their lawyer yeah a deposition of some kind yeah so and i thought too that the the natural thing that natural natural humanization that happens when you know you can sit there and

watch somebody talk or tell a story and the nuances of those things yeah i found that to be you know i don't even want to use the word damning but but because this isn't a trial but it was sort of like there's no reason any of these women would make any of this shit up and especially they're all a lot of this happened to them 30 40 years ago like why would you still be riding on a lie like this well yeah and a lot of them didn't even want to talk about it didn't want to talk and and to be fair like a lot of them were like the only reason they thought they would talk about it now is because they were like they they believed in they'd seen my work before and they're like well if anybody can pull this thing off it's you is what i was being like

so like they were like i'm going to trust you which is why even though I often wanted to quit I was like I can't do it because these women have trusted me but what were they trusting you with what did they what needed to happen that wasn't happening I know that you're saying there's blacklash and there's yeah I think that the worst thing that happened was you know once he got put in jail uh you know there was like okay that's done with and then and also there was an apathy in general after a certain point yeah i mean i think the thing that they that we were trying to pull off was and that they had to agree to because they had to understand is like we're not just going to talk about the assaults and the rapes yeah we're going to talk you're going to be in

a thing that also talks about the good he did right okay okay which is a very different thing you had to present that to them this is not surviving R. Kelly which is the doc that I was also inspired by for this it had to be like look you have to understand that there are going to be portions of this that are about the good he did or his career in a pot that will become off in a positive way yeah but also if you want to you can weigh in on that stuff which some of them did so like I was pretty blown away that like we have like like Lisa Lott Lublin or Lily Bernard, who are both black women and even an Eden Terrell, all black women who are all able to talk about like the good stuff. And so the first time you see them on screen, they're just sort of like, yeah, the Cosby show was great or whatever. And you don't know that they're also survivors because we don't ID them as survivors at that point.

So it was like you have to. And some of them were like, I'll be be in this but i don't want to talk about any good stuff fine fair but with many of them we were able to like so the audience doesn't even know who they're who they're hearing from until the stories happen now who were the people so how many people do you reach out to that were like no like i mean we talked before a little bit before i realized i wasn't recording sure that uh there were a lot of comedians. The idea was I can cover his influence on comics by talking to comics. Yeah. I had this idea that... A big part of this for me was to really talk about Bill Cosby himself as an important comedy statement.

That was, for me, which is why I had a hard time throwing it all away, because I'm still inspired by that. Well, yeah. I mean, I didn't come to that until later in life. I remember that, yeah. Oh, yeah, we talk about that? Yeah. I've heard you talk about it.

Yeah, like, you know, I never really dealt with Cosby that much. And, you know, I had the records and stuff, but it wasn't, and I never watched the Cosby show much. I knew him. You were a little bit outside of that for a couple reasons, yeah. Yeah, I just, I don't remember watching much TV. Maybe it was not my age group. I've seen maybe four episodes of Seinfeld.

And I'm not being an asshole. No, you were out in the clubs at that point. You weren't home on Thursday nights featuring and headlining. Doing something. I just didn't watch regular television since I was a little kid. But when I finally sat down and watched Bill Cosby himself i was like there the what i got out of it was you know oh you decide yes it's like there's no yeah there's no rules to funny it's like you want to sit down and tell your story you decide what's funny and make it funny you want to take your time yeah exactly

yeah you want to you want to just sort of you just want to like get there when you get there and now and think about the audience secondarily to the thing yeah but you know there takes a lot of confidence and and sort of focus to do that and deliberate but but i get that okay so so i thought i would have a bunch of different comedians and there's been articles written by of comedians talking about how great it is so i thought oh we'll get the comedians from that article to talk about it and it was just those that didn't know. But these are people you know relatively well. Some of them.

I mean, some of them, either I know them relatively well, or I know they know who I am because we've interacted on occasions, or people who I've reached out to. Some people you're just cold calling reaching out to. But yeah, it was. And then people who all levels. Like, I just want to be clear. Like, it's not just. It was like, yeah. But it was just people that thought, oh like this would be clear like it's not just it was

like yeah but it was just people that thought oh they'll do it what was the wait so what did they say i mean i think there's a there's a variety there was a variety of reasons to get here but it basically what it boiled down to is like this is too thorny this is too there's not like i don't know how to get in here and get out safely was that surprising to you that it was thorny it was surprising to me at first and then after more people said it then i was like oh i'm the one who didn't get it huh what do you like i was naive like i came to this too naive to go oh no the cosby's in prison we can talk about this and then i realized oh i'm the i'm one of the select few people who thinks this way. So there's still like, and I guess I'm going to keep hammering this.

Yeah, please do. But there's still part of primarily the black community that's protective of his legacy. I would say the comedian community, like the black community specifically. But I'm talking about comedians of all, like of lots of different racial groups. Okay, but fine. But I don't quite understand what they think is going to happen to them. It doesn't seem like Bill's got a lot of friends that are going to cause any damage that was the weirdest thing about all of it it's like no one's standing up for this guy well i mean show business well but they're also i think they're also not coming

after him they're not also not they're not like standing on top of him that's right yeah they're like this because he made a lot of people a lot of money. He did. And also, it's just easier to go like, oh, that thing happened. And it doesn't come up in your regular conversations because nobody wants to talk about it. Yeah, but the one thing that you weren't really able to get at was that, as we have learned over time, is that none of this kind of shit happens in a vacuum. Well, yeah.

But no one was willing to say like, oh, yeah. You know, everyone knew. I don't remember in the documentary, you know everyone people talked about that assistant yeah who was a facilitator yeah but that's it man and you know and you've got to assume that more than him knew what was going on well i think that's the that's the thing we we got to around the cosby show that it was like i think a lot of this was sort of two things. One is framed as infidelity, which I think you, you know, and I was a fuck around.

Yeah. So, and, and who are you going to be mad at? If you're mad at that guy for fucking around, like you just look around. So I think a lot of it. And I think that, that helps, that helps cover up a lot. I think framing it as like, just like covering it up as the casting couch with Weinstein covers up a lot.

Like, Oh, this is just the thing we do here. Everybody's in on it. You's in on it you don't understand that like no many people don't want to be in that room yeah so I think a lot of it is that it must have been creepy dude I mean that's a certain point I mean when the when Joseph C Phillips who was in the Cosby show and uh Lily Bernard who was one of the survivors talks about the parade of women after the rehearsal a parade of women would just parade to the green room and just sort of line up outside of women after the rehearsal, a parade of women would just parade to the green room and just sort of line up outside of his dressing room and one at a time go in and just sort of like they would close the door.

And I think one of the, Stephen Watkins, one of the stage managers says, his door was always open except for then. And then you hear Lily Bernard's story about being sort of escorted into his dressing room and he sort of grabs her, and she sort of just doesn't know what to make of it. You imagine how many times that happened

and how many times did that person not get out the way that she did. All right, so you get, okay, so you finally start seeing who's gonna show up for you. Yeah. And it's Godfrey, Chris Spencer, Wayne Fetterman as a historian. Wayne Fetterman, believe me, Wayne Fetterterman as a historian wayne fetterman who i will believe

me wayne fetterman as a historian thanks wayne and then cliff who you know i talked to who i learned about through you cliff nesterov now okay so these are your these are some of your guys these are the comedy people right so once you start in on this thing you know what's how do you outline it what where do you start i mean it very clearly from the first meeting that we had about it, uh, it was like, we knew we sort of, even though you don't want to do things chronologically, it just sort of felt like his career is so massive that you have to lay it out. You got to lay it out. And then you can jump around within the chronology, which we do a little bit.

That was kind of genius where you had either actual, photographs of the women or or the suggestive sort of uh silhouettes yeah you know that that you fit into a timeline yeah so you can kind of see like when it accelerated when it was you know at his most predatory and uh you know how many women were involved uh because like those numbers are there they're available they're they're yes you know and it's and he's a pretty prolific rapist. Well, and I think that's the thing for even those of us who believe the survivors, you don't ever see it laid out. Right.

And you sort of goes, it's been more than 60. And that just sort of number just sort of sits out there. But to look at it in a graphic in which we decided at the end, I was like, we have to see something that really puts it all together. And also like it. The weird thing is, is like, you know know when when you see numbers on their own and and you just think cosby 60 70 it's like how is that even possible it's like it's possible yeah how long does that shit take well you're talking one night one hour in a life yeah and you're also talking about the

fact i don't think we all realize it went back so far in his career right but like it's like you know like if you're doing that and you're in environments where that can happen, and there's 365 days in a year, 60 is even like, it's not that big a number, man. Well, as Rene Graham says, if it's 60 who've come forward, it's probably more. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. So, okay, so you start chronologically. And what are the first, sort of as the guy who you present yourself at the beginning of this thing? It's like, look, man, I loved Cosby. We all loved Cosby. America loved Cosby.

Look at his amazing career. He's the first black guy to be this black guy. He's the first black guy to be that black guy. Yeah. So like, you know, we all loved him and the white people were starting to love him. This guy was amazing. At what point during the process of unfolding this stuff or unpacking it and then presenting yourself as the guy who's like,

I'm wrestling with how to contextualize or recontextualize Cosby in my heart and in my mind. Yeah. So what were the first obstacles? Like, where were you? You were like, oh, fuck. What am I doing? Oh, well, okay.

So the first obstacles was realizing, like, okay, I'm not going to have A-list comedians or lots of comedians in this. I'm not going to have a lot of people who worked with him. And I had conversations with people who, with comedians who worked with him, great conversations that ultimately ended up with no. I'm not going to have, so the so the thing that like i think showtime wants and i want but really is like you're not gonna have a poster with a bunch of famous people's names on it yeah to sort of go look at all these people who showed up for this yeah and then a

pandemic hit in the middle of all this that we so we like the challenge of like how do we still make this the idea is we're gonna fly around the country to a bunch of survivors we're gonna spend a lot of time in philly how do we do that now that we now the whole that the whole world is shut down and so i think those two challenges in particular were the ones of like and then like will we get enough survivors to show up the survivors ended up and that was through my producer geraldine and katie king and kelly rafferty that they like really the survivors were actually ended up being the easiest people to recruit. We didn't get all 60.

We didn't, we didn't expect to, but we got enough from different eras that it felt like we could build the filled out the picture. Are there out names? Are all those 60 names out? Some of them are Jane does, but there are, but I would say most of them, as I understand it, are out there. Yeah. And I think we were also trying to be careful to like, but some of these people came forward

and then just never came forward, like said their piece and haven't gone out and done a lot. So we didn't want to be like, go look these people up, you know, so you can go find them, but we don't want them to feel like we're bringing it because they all talk about the negative attention they get from it. And so some of them have really said, I don't give a shit. I'm going to be out here and do activism based on this. But a lot of them, I think, were like, I said what I said what i said and i'm not saying it i'm not gonna take the heat anymore yeah i'm not that's not going to be my life that's not i'm not going to be defined by that right you know right yeah so so the obstacles were the pandemic you know the the not getting uh support or contribution from from major names in show business and then but what, so what makes you go on?

Because like when you talk about the OJ doc. Yeah. They got almost everybody. Well, yeah, but you're also talking about, you know, a kind of a re-framing of the story in a way where you're forced to, as an individual of any color, you know, to reckon with what is really the evidence, right? So on some level, I took it when you said

we need to talk about Cosby, that in some ways it was a direct appeal to the black community. To sort of like, what are we doing? Well, I think it's a direct appeal to people who, specifically the black community, because it's very clear that there's pieces of this doc that are about black folks. And I'm talking to black people directly. But it's also like, again, he was America's dad.

So all of us who grew up in that era and took him in as our dad, or people older than me who just sort of like, that's my guy. That we need to all talk about Cosby. Okay, I guess, you know, as I'm saying it over and over again, I'm realizing, well, maybe I'm being, like, because I don't, like, we are all looking to, like, not just the comic community, but, like, white people are looking to, like, what are you black people going to do about this?

How we, wait. That's not, and it's not, it's not just our problem. No, I know that. But it's a natural thing, like, what is the reaction? like but what is what what but it seems that media will always go that way because what is it how do you generalize the white reaction to cosby i mean i think that the the levels of reaction are just different so i think like this is what i'm saying

you could find me a very famous white comedian who of the right age so we're not talking somebody young, but we're talking about somebody who is who is a famous white comedian who exists in the world and go, do you want to talk about Bill Cosby? And that guy's going to say no, because he's also under the umbrella of Bill Cosby. So for me, when you say that we need to talk about Cosby, for me, it was this thing where, like, I feel like these conversations are happening either not at all or they're happening in segments. And I feel like there's value in having the whole conversation. Now, for some people, they don't want to have the whole conversation. Well, luckily, there's other programming for you. But I really felt like there is a percentage of people, a large percentage of people who are like, I haven't been able to have this conversation and figure out how to have this conversation. And embedded in this to me is like empathy for survivors and help.

How do we change the structures so that this doesn't happen again? Cause it's not like the industry, despite what we think would happen during me too, things haven't flipped in a whole new way. Things haven't, the industry hasn't been rebuilt. So, so in,

in terms of, is there a way for the two, you know, for the two realities or experiences of cosby you know pre you know revelation and post you know acceptance of said revelation uh to to to still have a place for this guy that that can exist in those two worlds yeah i mean that's the question well for me it's not even a question because I can't remove Cosby from my cultural black man DNA. I can't remove the good stuff.

Sure. So I think for me, it's like, how do I then live with it? Because I can't act like, well, I'm just going to pretend like I wasn't inspired by Bill Cosby himself. I'm not going to think about all the good things I got from watching the Cosby show. I can't do that. But I think there would be this idea that like,

well, now that he's done this, you have to do that. And that and it's like it's not possible so how do you then live with it is the question and it was that was this uh was this did you realize that was a question that you were seeking to answer and before you made the doc or did that sort of i mean it started on the whole i mean i think it started on the art versus artist thing and then and then once we got into it it was like that sort of felt like sort of like low-hanging fruit and really it became about like how do we create how do we stop this from happening how do we create more safety here how do we believe survivors okay so so that so that that whole argument sort of exists in the world that it's not even an argument it's like you know either you're going to be able to still

appreciate the person that turns out to be horrible because they did some amazing stuff and you're going to be able to separate it. You know, whether the, you know, in terms of retrospect, the stuff, amazing stuff they did still has any credit to it. Who knows? Right. So you're dealing with that. I mean, even on some level, you know, there have been people trying to kind of like, Martin Luther King to some people gets a little murky. Well, yeah.

I mean, he was a human being. Sure, exactly. Okay. I'll be clear, not as murky as Cosby. No, but it's not murky. A human being is one thing. It's sort of like the road's the road. But a rapist is a rapist.

Yeah, no. And I want to be clear. I don't want anybody to listen to think I'm, but Martin Luther King was a, he's a man and he was a popular man who was apparently on the road as popular men are. Right. Yeah. So, so that's different.

I mean, we've tried to be clear into that, like infidel, we're not making this doc if it's about infidelity. Right. No, this is about a sociopath and a predator and a rapist. Right. So it's about consent. It's about, yeah, it's about infidelity right no this is about a sociopath and a predator and and a rapist right so it's about consent it's about yeah it's about lack it's about not respecting consent and infidelity that's diplomatic yes but i'm saying infidelity if this infidelity implies consent this is right right yeah it's yeah it's a it's hard to ask for consent when someone's unconscious so but okay so so when you're laying out the history of Cosby because this is

stuff that pre-existed your life and my life you know we were young you know and whenever he makes his first break that was like 60 what two 60 yeah 60 62 63 is when he starts getting a late night TV so yeah that's when I'm born and you're not even an idea yet nope nope parents haven't met yet so so this is something you've got to look at in that editing room. As you're building this thing, it's sort of like, holy fuck. Yeah. And then sort of make the connections. Not even the editing room. All my computer in my house with files being mailed to me

because there's no push of the pandemic. Right. But just sort of like the history of black America alongside of what he's doing, because there's a way to approach that critically as well in that some people spoke to it, I don't remember the woman's name, that he wasn't addressing it.

But ultimately his existence is addressing it. Yes, yes. And then after that, his actions are very progressive in the name of the community. Well, and also that's the thing. I mean, the first story that made me sort of feel like somebody's got to tell this story, and this is where before I thought I would ever get the opportunity,

was in the wave of all the accusers coming forward, the survivors coming forward, I read an article about this woman named Noni Robinson, who's a film director, who's directing a film about the history of black stunt performers, and how she did... That was an interesting sideline, huh? Yeah, to me, that's where this starts.

As of like... Because a lot of this could be boiled down to... and how she did. That was an interesting sideline, huh? Yeah. To me, that's where this starts. Yeah. As a, like, because a lot of this could be boiled down to whether, I don't want it to be about do you think Cosby's funny? It's not about that. It's about what do you think about his career? Right.

And he specifically, during his, when he got I Spy, he saw that they were using a white stunt performer to do his stunts. In blackface. In blackface.

In legitimate blackface. Painting his arms black and everything. And he said, I refuse to do, I refuse to be on this show unless you get me a black stunt performer and the people in the black in the stunt industry the black stunt performers say that's the moment things changed yeah it wasn't about like oh that was a piece of the thing that's the moment things changed and so for me it was like okay that's bigger than whether or not people think he's funny that's actually a part of our history and she had a documentary that eventually is going to come out now i guess but like that she couldn't figure out what to do with because she'd interviewed bill cosby for two hours and

felt like she couldn't use that interview now because of all the stories of the accusers and so it was like where's she at with that she it's apparent i think because of our film she now she feels like she can figure it out so it will come out because i think it's an important that's the point where it's like bill Cosby gets black people jobs. And didn't take credit. Didn't go take credit for it. Didn't get a headline for it. Nobody.

I've talked to many people. That's what white people do. Exactly. But also you would think in the mid sixties, you might be a black guy who wants to get some good press. A champion of the cause. And he, he didn't do it.

And this is, you know, so I think that was, and to me, I'm like people who don't know this story and this is an important story about black history right and also he did these other things but how do you we can't let that

story go but that was sort of an interesting kind of like coincidental sidebar you know like you're like wow that were how'd we get here and you find that woman who's got this other issue with Cosby yeah so all right so you're moving through this stuff and that's what i learned from ezra's piece like how to take try to how to can you take sidebars and get back to the main

road sure and and can you put somebody into a historical perspective and it doesn't overwhelm you know the fact that we're talking about the balance you're trying to maintain yeah try the i was always thinking about like we always i would say to the editors and the producers we always have to remind people that another shoe is eventually going to drop we can't make people think that like we get they would trick them into watching a different documentary but you like present you know yeah the the stunt thing you know his you know his becoming a leading man his becoming uh you know uh you know definitely the black white line was you know it it went away for him to a degree yeah and all the stuff with Paul D.A.

And then, like, then at some point, you start to drop the timeline in. Yeah. When did this other thing start happening? Or also, I remember what I was going to say, is that you really started to build his family life. Yeah. That he built this family life. Yeah, and publicly built this thing. So, yeah. But that was the other thing, is that there was that subtextual argument of the portrait of a sociopath,

which is like, what was compartmentalizing and just him? Was this all a front to facilitate his base intentions? That's a hard argument to make, you you definitely posit that as a psychological assessment well i think uh uh jelani cobb puts it the best he's like there people want to make this dr dr jekyll and mr hyde but there's an argument that it's all mr hyde and i don't think we can i i really was like i'm not going to try to answer that question because that's not i'm not in the position to do that this isn't that level of this isn't true crime it's more like how do we deal with all these pieces?

And I just want to have the audience go, let's just sort of sift through this stuff and let's see where we come out on the other side. And we don't have to come out in the same place as long as we agree that these things happened. I don't think anybody is necessarily capable. I'm not capable of diagnosing him. No, right, right, right.

Yeah, there's people that are capable. There are people, no, I'm not. But I say, I no i i right right right yeah there's people that are capable there are no i'm not but i say i just feel like as a person who's making this there's lots of arguments that are presented in here right but see but but i guess you know in that sense you know like with psychological assessment or framing it you know as all a sham you know what what precedent is set for assessing you you know people in general and artists in general and people? You know what I mean? It's like, is it better just to say like, well, he had this mentally ill problem,

but do you need to say that Dr. Huxtable was just all, that was just so he could rape people? Well, I mean, this is where we start to dig through what we call the breadcrumbs of like, isn't this strange that he could have any job on the Cosby show that he wanted to have. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Like where you go. Gynecologist. Yeah. Where is this? And is, I mean, and to me,

I'm not, and where's his, where's his office? It's TV. It could be anywhere. It's in the basement of his house. It's just to me, or it's like,

okay, one Spanish fly joke in the 1960s hey swinging 60s what's p what's family friendly is different yeah but on larry king he made we've all seen that clip yeah he makes the joke about spanish fly he's an older man at this point that's where he's still telling this joke you think he would age out of this joke and then what we found out during the series is that he was there promoting a book called childhood that has like several uh uh mentions mentions of Spanish fly in the book. You're like, this is just a lot, man.

To me, that's what I think when you start to dig through and find these breadcrumbs. You start to go like, what is it? Is it that because you're doing these bad things, they just sort of leak out of you because you can't stop them? Or is it because Cliff at one point says he's a narcissist yeah and i don't go that's right he's a narcissist but i feel like cliff is like saying this is what i see from this perspective because if i do it it's not bad and you go well that's one side of it and then jelani cobb says maybe it's all mr hyde maybe it's all an e maybe you know you're evil and you're sort of doing all of this manipulatively i don't know what the answer is there, but I do know that all of this exists.

That's true. And maybe I'm being a little too critical of that assessment because like, you know, entertainers, they're not really known for moral integrity in general. But they're not also, but Mark mark i would say you don't claim to be a moral authority and we have a man here who claims that well that's the next twist right yeah is that this evolves into this other thing like we all sort of accept and i'm not i'm not in any way indicting any i'm not saying anything about but we all accept that richard pryor was probably not the greatest dude you know what i mean of course but like with Of course. But he'd be the first to tell you.

But that's the difference right there is that Richard Pryor sort of owns his like, I'm not the greatest dude. And I've told you about I'm not the greatest dude. How many times do I gotta tell you? Exactly. And so we sort of have room for him in ways we might not if he was also saying,

I'm the greatest dude. Whereas with this Cosby story, that's why I think it gets into this sort of like, well, what's really going on here? Because it's a dude who told us he was the greatest dude. Whereas with this Cosby story, that's why I think it gets into this sort of like, well, what's really going on here? Because it's a dude who told us he was the greatest dude and told us he wanted us to be the greatest people. And then made you realize that there's no way you can be great like him.

And then when you say there's women who claim that he assaulted them on the set of his children's TV show picture pages. Oh my God. That's exactly it right there oh my god like it's just like how do i how does all this live in my head and to me i always thought of this doc as like once we got into it once showtime was like it's i was there was just sort of the idea of like okay there's not all these famous comedians in

it all these people directly all these people couldn't directly connect to him yeah then it was like then come out you have to be in this right and so i was like do i and i talked to martha listen she's like yeah you do because otherwise it's not going to hang together so i sort of and i the the most nervous i think i've recorded for vo in my life was when i sat in my wife's closet because this is the vo booth going uh my name's w come out bell and i'm a child of bill cosby because i was like i'm gonna be at the top of this thing like i didn't think i was gonna be the top of the same like I'm I'm aiming it all at me now yeah and but ultimately the thing that I sort of really want the doc to be is like this is a bunch of smart people who have thought this through who are sensitive and empathetic because I don't want those people who are not and if you

have a Bill Cosby conversation these are all different versions of the Bill Cosby conversation yeah I think like a lot of people you could actually see some i don't remember exactly who they were but there was a sense of inner struggle yeah because a lot of them are black people around my age like so that they like went they have they have gone through in the same way that i've gone through yeah and and you know and but they did come out on the side of like damn damn what which to me is like again that's if you don't come out on the side of damn i don't know how to i don't know i don't i don't want i don't know how to bring you to this conversation now how was it in in terms of how many survivors are in it that you spoke to for like what seemed to be i mean it's uh there's i mean so there's in in the first

episode victoria valentino gets the law gets is like the survivor. Then in the second episode, there's Patricia Steyer, Janice, Linda. In the third episode, it's Lily and Eden Turrell, and also Lisa, Lisa Lott-Lublin. And then there's other survivors we talked to in the timeline, but those are the major ones. And how did you handle those those interviews i mean what what was it were you nervous yeah the very first interview you did was with victoria valentino's in the first episode yeah and we were all like and that was actually in person a lot of these interviews were not because i was in my house but uh so we were all the whole crew was like really like up on our toes just sort of like she's gonna be here in a minute everybody ready like sort of like dudes act right you know what i mean like sort of like

and they were all cool but it was just like okay when she comes in we don't know how she's gonna be give her a space we set up a green room for her we bought her flowers we did like it was very much like let her tell us what to do let's take the cues and victoria walked in like hey everybody like it was just like she gave She's giving hugs to everybody. She gave me a copy of her Playboy magazine. She asked me questions about United Shades. She was like all of us relaxed. And then we sat her down.

And then when we sat down on the couch, I was always very clear that before we get into anything with Bill Cosby, where are you from? What do you do? What's your life like? What was it like growing up yeah and then the more you and this is what i've learned from united shades the more you do that then by the time you get to the thing people are actually more open to the conversation yeah because it's just it's it's it's just a thing in another thing in the conversation you're just built and they know you're building to it instead of like being nervous at the beginning of the

conversation and then what happened is inside of that we got stories that we didn't know we were going to get because we just took more time. And so that conversation was over two hours, the first one. And we didn't know, my producer talked to her, Geraldine, didn't know that her son had died so close before she met Bill Cosby. That came up in the conversation. Horrible. Yeah.

And then we also, all that stuff, I wanted to get all this stuff about Playboy from her because she'd been a Playmate and a part of the playboy clubs and i was like oh we can actually use this stuff in the stuff we talk about the playboy yeah after so but you just sort of like get all this extra stuff that i was really clear on i want these women as much as possible to appear for the first time not connected to bill cosby yeah so you just go this is just a voice come out a voice oh she's of course she's an expert she talks she worked at playboy you know yeah so other story yeah yeah so for but and then so by the time we got that victoria one and then the rest most of them were done lisa's was not but

most of them were done over zoom and it was just you sort of like am i going to be able to get that level of intimacy over zoom and it's weird but you did we did i mean you've done it here with the podcast so you can you do you just sort of like everybody's aware it's zoom and you sort of make jokes about zoom and you say oops i'm muted and you sort of like just sort of like you know go into it just stay focused and if there's not other people in the room and stuff you can kind of hold it and everybody like everybody knows what they're there for so it's and we were very clear by the end like because we had to hire a lot of like day players to do the just because it was covid we couldn't get the same people and you just make sure everybody comes to the door knows what they're there for and knows how to be as as

invisible as possible and you know but like i interviewed like gloria hendry who was the first black bond girl and she was just having a great time she's great and she stood up and did the thing where she should like nobody asked her to she just stood up and did the thing where she bent over at the table and where and there was like a boom op or in the back and they're like oh we should ever do it again and move i was like we i don't care at all just let these people be yeah my whole style of interviewing for me is let these people be don't try to manage them into an answer yeah and so yeah so all the survivors like they were they by the time they decided to show up it was just clear that they had already done the work

to be there sure and they they had grounded themselves and and done whatever mental preparation they've done enough of these things where they sort of like the more comfortable the more you make it clear that that you're not here just for the sad part the more they relax so like when cosby takes that turn like and i i don't know the timeline of cosby but you know when he made that speech pound cake speech the pound cake 2004 yeah that uh you know changed you know everybody's mind about him lots of people's yeah yeah like like what so by the time you know hannibal you know somehow dumps us into the world in a way that resonates 2014 yeah what is the feeling about cosby in general i think i mean this is funny because uh in 20 when so when cosby does the pound cake speech me like a lot of

black people my age was that 2004 oh wow which is the same year that andrew constant came forward and said that he had raped her so it's like all of this is happening simultaneously but generally most of us are looking at the pound cake speech and not really paying attention to this Andrew Cosby. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when he does the pound cake speech, I and a lot of, you know, Kevin Avery, we were both like, oh, this is such a bummer. Like, it just felt like, oh, man. And, you know, we know a lot of older black people get conservative. But you're like, not Cosby.

And it felt so mean. Like, it didn't feel like tough love. It felt like mockery. Yeah, because this is a guy that you established throughout the documentary as being a guy that is concerned with educating and is an educator. And believes in all of us, not just the ones of us who are doing well. Right. And then all of a sudden he turns into this.

He turns into like, if he went from being America's dad to black america's angry grandfather and like making fun of the ways in which black people name their kids and one of the names he uses to make fun of them is muhammad you're like that name like of all the names to like choose to like say and you know and so it just felt it felt out of touch it felt like a dude who was super rich and was almost bitter about the fact that didn't i tell you all how to get super rich yeah and you're not all super rich there's a bit of that going around these days yeah it is i think it's more that than we realize yeah i told you how to get super rich

and how to i told you how to rise out of your poverty and you didn't do it and now i'm mad at you and it was also it sort of sucked because there was a significant portion of the black community when you listen to those clips from the Poundcake speech, there's black people in the audience cheering and clapping. So it's like it's not just that Cosby made all black people mad. He sort of created a rift in the black community for the first time in his career. Right. But also that was the same sort of rift that Chris Rock artfully explored. Very much.

And it's funny because i did a documentary about chris rock and we talk about black people versus uh that bit yeah and uh man i don't even want to say it because now rogan's ruined the n-word uh but uh the idea being that like oh no just you mean we got you guys gotta take the n-word back we gotta take it back again he's ruined it for me i'm not saying he's ruined for all of us but uh but the idea being that like chris and he says in the doc that i did with him i'm of that community so when i'm criticizing it they know i'm a hip-hop guy i'm not a guy who's like he's not coming at it he's not coming at it from an outside like cosby does not live in the community anymore man no and and

chris would even admit like he wouldn't do that bit now because he's not it's he's a different guy but when he did it he was a dude who was in in Brooklyn a lot, you know, and and people saw him around, you know, so he wasn't a dude. He was and he was also very much tied into hip hop artists that are doing the same thing in there. So, yeah. Whereas Cosby, it was like it came out of nowhere. It came from like you every time we'd seen him at that point, he was telling us how to do better and that we could do better and it felt like he was reaching his hand out to us and that was the and also this is the thing i think is so critical he wasn't turning on all all parents in america who were doing poorly he was turning on black moms yeah so it wasn't like he was like a lot of you parents out here are are mecking up he was at the naacP turning on generally black moms who were struggling and their kids and that was sort of like that was like the the big uh what would you call disappointment yeah it was like

a seismic shift but in in sort of like how we saw Cosby but I saw Cosby do stand-up twice after that because when you saw him do stand-up he wasn't doing that like me and Avery went and saw him again you have to accommodate these different sides of cosby we were at our and this is what i think hannibal did so well is that we were allowed to because of the media landscape and we're not on twitter and social media is not telling us what the yeah like what you're allowed to sort of go okay i'm going to see this cosby i'm not going to see i'm not thinking about the cosby who has these rape allegations i'm not thinking about the cosby who's doing pancake speech i'm just going to spend two hours with this guy talking about his grandkids and his wife and the remote control, which is what I did at the Paramount Theater in Oakland.

How was that? It was great. He closed on the dentist. And everybody laughed like we'd never heard it before. Like he literally at the end of his bit, he just went, the dentist. And we all went, yay. Wow. He knew his shtick. and so and then hannibal

goes no you're not allowed to do that anymore you're not allowed to think about these things separately not that he that didn't like like when i heard that stuff or when it finally got to me i was surprised i didn't know anything and first why do you think at that moment it picked up i mean i had heard these because by then by 2004 andrew constance case had been around there had been other women who had come forward so like i i definitely was one of the people who was like yeah i don't know why i haven't been able to put these i don't know why i'm sorry i haven't been able to put these things in one place in my head yeah i think it was like it's just the perfect storm hannibal he's a black comedian he's in philadelphia he

youtube is start is a thing now cell phones can now get video footage yeah the person who got the video footage was also a journalist it was like it was just like the perfect storm of like it couldn't have happened any other way if the guy if if there's no cell phone footage of it maybe the story gets out but it doesn't play the same did cosby ever comment on hannibal he is generally commented through publicist but i don't think he ever i don't think he i don't remember well there's that one weird bit in when there's the the the the art collection was being shown yes wasn't he asked about hannibal he was asked

about yes he was he was at the so him and camille so it's like there's this period of time when hannibal does his bit and then but it's before the accusations start coming forward in mass there's like a few weeks in there and so cosby and and camille were doing or hanging their art up at a museum i think in philly but they were maybe in dc they're giving their art collection to the smithsonian i think or lending it to them and it was just like camille and bill and everyone's excited to talk to them and it's bill cosby and again nobody's thinking pound cake it's just america's and Bill, and everyone's excited to talk to them. And it's Bill Cosby. And again, nobody's thinking pound cake. It's just America's dad is here.

With his art. With his art. And his wife. With his beautiful art. And they're talking about it, and they're smiling. And there's all this footage of them smiling together, and journalists smiling with him. And I remember hearing on NPR, Scott Simon go, he's talking about the art. And he goes, Mr. Cosby, before I let you go, I have to ask you something.

And we have footage in the thing of not of Scottott simon but an ap reporter doing the same thing like before i let you go yeah i have to ask you something uh-huh and it's about there's there's a comedian and i don't think the guy at npr the guy that we have in the piece doesn't even get hannibal's name out on the thing he's like there's a comedian who did and cosby's just like no no no no no we don't talk about that yeah which is one thing to say but then he then tells the guy to scuttle it the word he uses scuttle it don't use this bit where's your man where's where's the producer where's your person yeah and then he he does the thing at one point he goes huh to somebody who has clearly said nothing they're like what uh uh uh we need to get talk

to his person immediately yeah and you can feel can feel the fear. But he barely changed his tone, but his intensity. And just Camille sitting there, I'm like, wow. Yeah. What kind of gaslighting insanity? You know, like, what does she know what she doesn't? You know, Judd Apatow did the most amazing joke about that. Did you hear him do it? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Camille, do you like your life it was like i'll be like i'll forever uh you know whatever judgments you have of judd as a comic yeah that joke is like he's good with me and you know what that's one of the jokes that like probably need to be done by a white guy like i don't know that a black guy can get away with that joke like it's like how does she not know is he hiding newspaper you know like i mean we have a little section in the doc where i asked everybody who was like did you know his family did you see his family and there's just a very consistent between the people i talked to like she was never

around so whatever their deal is i think she knew when to not be around and then he would use her to survivors like you have to go Camille's on her way like there's a sense of like they understood the Camille meant I have to leave yeah but that probably wasn't even true I'm sure I mean yeah I don't think that's a real sense of like I think he just you know he's doing whatever it takes to get this

person out of his out of his house right so yeah but yeah so that we this is the thing I did not know until we started doing the doc, that Cosby had a history of bullying reporters and calling reporters and demanding retractions and threatening people's jobs, even though he didn't have the ability to threaten their job.

And Mark Lamont Hill tells a story. He's a professor at Temple about how Cosby called. That guy was good. Yeah, Mark's great. Mark's great. Yeah, he's an underrated resource. So was that woman, the other actor. K guy was good. Yeah. Mark's great. Mark's great. He's yeah. He's an underrated resource. So was that, uh,

that woman that the other Kierna Mayo. Wow. Yeah. No, that's what I, at some point I was like, I don't know if Showtime is going to be famous people, but we have good conversations in here.

Oh yeah. And we have people who speak well and thinkers and big thinkers and people who are clearly wrestling with it while I talk to them. And once Showtime was down, once they said, well, if you're once they were never, they were always supportive, but oncetime was down, once they said, well, if you're, once, they were never, they were always supportive, but once they were down,

once they saw it, and they let us do the Survivors sort of without extra music, without archival, without recreation, they just let the women talk. It was like, well, I know we have something here. All right, so you do all this, and you get these amazing, like this sort of respect and time uh uh given to the survivors and to the and to all types of of people trying and wrestling and assessing it both from you know a female point of view a male point of view you know all of that yeah uh all fluid

point of view yeah uh you know and but when you're doing this he he's in jail. So on some level, these people are speaking from a place where a certain amount of justice has been doled out, handed. Justice has been served. And then before you finish it, he gets out on a technicality, right? I just want to be clear. Lawyers say it's not a technicality, but it is the way that we, the most of us who are not lawyers understand it as a technicality right i mean i just want to be clear a lawyer lawyers say it's not a technicality but it is the way that we the most of us who are not lawyers understand it as a technicality right lawyers say it's like the truth is is that he struck a deal with one with the with one da yes da that deal the next da came in and basically was like i'm going to put bill cosby in prison

so he opens so he violates the deal and then a new person comes in who goes no now i'm gonna go back to the original deal she's got to get out of prison so it was like the the part that is ridiculous power afforded him that yeah i think the the power 100 like because the first of all the first the deal was is involving the entry and reconciliate case and the deal was if you do this deposition about her case you can say whatever you want to say and we won't prosecute you which is not a deal that a person without power gets yeah that's not a deal what's the point of that because they were trying to wrap up the andrew constant they were trying to wrap up andrew constant's case and they that was how they figured out to do it you come in

here and tell us what happened you tell us you answer our questions and then we will be able to wrap up Andrew Constance case. And then you can go on and live your life. And so that was a, you know, Andrew Constance had a civil case against him, but it was like the idea of being that like do this. And so he did it. And that's where he says in the deposition, I mean,

there's a couple of things he says. One, he admits to giving women quaaludes for sex, but you can read that as like, they want to have sex or not. Cause he's a party man. But the thing he says that I, that the doc lands on that I had didn't know until I did the doc was about for sex but you can read that as like they want to have sex or not because the party man but the thing he says that i that the doc lands on that i had didn't know until i did the doc was about the

fact that when he was with andrea constant and she is drugged he says he's a pro he's sort of approaching her however you want to put it he's and he says i enter the i enter the space between permission and rejection and i'm not stopped and as far as I'm concerned I was like that's that's the game that's not a thing yeah there's no space between permission and rejection especially if you've drug somebody already yeah so that for me it's like that's him admitting to his what he does and I don't think a lot of people had heard that that way before yeah and so that to me was like I know a lot of people focus on the first part but i want to focus on the second part but yes and and then he gets out so to be kieran amayo michael cord who's a philly lawyer and we did another second interview with uh with mark lamont that were that we did

after he got out of prison what was your feeling then like what what happened for you when that happened because you were like nearing the end of the work right yeah we thought we were like our last day of filming and we thought like yeah like, yeah, we were in Philly. And none of us, there was no sense that this might happen. We didn't go to Philly because we thought it would happen. And I got a text message from a mutual friend of ours who's a comedian. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I can tell you later because he said,

and he was like, your doc just got more interesting. And I was like, and I run out, I was in the bathroom. I run out of the bathroom, like everybody, I have news. But of course, everybody was on their phone. And I was like, I don't know what this is anymore. I, is it done? Yeah. And I, cause a lot, there are Cosby docs out there that have, that have gotten to a place. There's one, I know that I heard that it's finished, but it just stopped, but it's just sitting on a shelf somewhere. So I just like, maybe this is what happens. Maybe it's done. Also, maybe it should be done. Cause maybe it's I was like, maybe this is what happens. Maybe it's done. Also, maybe it should be done because maybe it's not going to, maybe this is really not a good idea for me to do this anymore.

So you thought like you had nothing. Well, I just thought that the story was too complicated and also too charged now that he was out. Like maybe legally we can't do it. I don't know what any, like especially the kid, we had just heard he was out of prison, but he wasn't exonerated, which I didn't understand at that moment. Like maybe we can't say anything. Maybe you have to put alleged before everything. But he wasn't exonerated., but he wasn't exonerated, which I didn't understand at that moment. Like, maybe we can't say anything.

Maybe you have to put alleged before everything. But he wasn't exonerated. No, he wasn't exonerated. It was just about the deal being violated, the deal for him to say whatever he wanted to say in the deposition. It wasn't about his guilt or innocence. Huh. Did you try to reach out to him? No.

No point? There was a lot of talk. There was sort of we talked about it. Yeah. But to one one it was always about the conversation around bill cosby not a conversation with bill cosby there is plenty of bill cosby footage in there he's never wavered from what he what he he says he's he's completely innocent i don't believe that and i don't think i can have a real i don't it doesn't i can't have

a conversation about his career no and it would have to be pointed have to be pointed. All the women who were invited in. You're going to do that to them? No, I'm not going to do that to them. Let him sit there and go, I didn't do it? Yeah, and have them go, I know I told you that he wasn't going to be in it, but now that he's out. Yeah, and guess what? He says he didn't do it. Yeah.

And he also said that he named you by name and there's a lawyer there. And to me, it was just like, that's not what this is. Exactly. So after that happens, so you're sort of left with everything you've done you've got four hours of this that you put together and what you're really

left with is I still have to figure out what I do with this these two sides of this guy you'll appreciate this sort of version of it I thought of it as I started saying this uh uh sort of version of it i thought of it as a like as i started saying this a lot this is like that tv show chopped i just these are the ingredients i have yeah i have to make them into something well do you think that you know because like now

that we're talking about it it feels to me that culturally there is a verdict and and that for the most part you know people believe it but yeah I would say that, I mean, yes, that there's a large percentage of people who believe the survivors, but I think the doc, if they watch it, makes them dig into it and believe in a different way. Yeah, and also, I think that one thing that it may address that isn't really spoken is that all the people that loved him, there's a shame equation

to it there's a shame equation to to continuing to love him in light of it that you know it it's it's a hard reckoning for an individual even if it's not that important or or up front but you know to love somebody you believe did horrible things repeatedly and still have empathy for the victims and i mean the survivors there's there's there's got to be shame in that well and i think that we had a section that we had to pull out for time mostly where we asked everybody would you show would you watch the stuff again would you show it to kids and so where we had lots of people go through how they would reckon with it like what what stuff like would you show episodes of the cosby show to kids in your life would you watch would you listen to him do stand-up again do you do you do this and it's the idea sort of

to show like how people are reckoning with it and it's all very everybody has their own way most people said no but then we had people say yes but the idea being that like and this is what i sort of come to now is that first of all we all separate art from the artist all the time, just in ways that we don't think about. Yeah, because we don't know a lot, too. Well, we don't know a lot, or we don't judge the thing that, some things we don't judge as harsh, other people are judging as harsh. Like, I think of much, and I'm doing this on purpose, Eric Clapton right now. There's a whole lot of like, I didn't know i didn't know the racist story from the past i don't he's an anti-vaxxer coronavirus conspiracy guy but he has 50 40 years of music that i've

loved yeah and so well not me not me yeah no i know hendrix was always better i don't i don't know i have problems with creptin yeah but i know what you're saying but the idea that like we are sort of we do it we do it a lot but the problem with the Cosby thing is, and this is a problem generally, is that when somebody else doesn't separate it the way you do, then that's where the problem lies. And I think what we have to understand, we have to have empathy for the fact that I'm going to separate it here, but that doesn't mean other people are going to separate it in the same place. And right now, we spend a lot of time arguing about these lines on social media in ways that aren't productive. And what I'm saying is, look, here's how I feel about it. I can think positively about some of the stuff that Cosby did, but I'm not ever going to forget about the survivors. So there is a universe in which I show my three daughters at some point that scene from the Cosby show where they're doing the lip sync of Ray Charles.

Because that's like in me, like how some sync of Ray Charles. Because that's in me like how some people feel at the moon landing. That's in me. But I'm definitely going to contextualize it in whatever age-appropriate way is necessary at that point. But I think that's one of the things that, as much as I like the documentary and I like you, it's tricky. Yeah. Because it's like i get what you're

saying and i get that you're saying that you know we do it all the time with art and artists but like whatever clapton's transgressions are they're not 60 rapes no no no i mean i'm not saying that no but i'm saying even without the the clapton example like i'm trying to picture you showing your kids this and then trying to say like there's a problem with this guy i mean i feel like i i feel like we've done we've done i've done this with my kids there's a there's a problem with america okay okay like so like yeah but america's not you know doing the ray charles whip sinking yeah but america has here's the good thing about this country i mean i think this is what i feel about so there's some people who are like why would a black man tear down a black man why would you do why blah blah blah all these things i don't think you're tearing him down i

think i think people who say that haven't seen it yeah but i also think you're just you know contextualized yeah but i feel like this like as a black person in this country and this is even true of jews we have the ability to go here's the good part about america yeah here's the bad part about america and you have the ability to hold that part is winning i feel fair i've looked into new zealand a lot please new zealand hit me up but like i think it's it's about we do that regularly where you go this is the you know greatest country on earth i mean that's not true right but we sort of grew up in this greatest country on earth and also don't go down that street because they don't like your people down that's true and so i think that like state yeah

this is don't go down that state but i do think that like i'm not saying like today i'm going home to play this thing for my 10 year old i'm saying there is some point in her life where it might come across her face and i have to go yeah and right or somehow it comes up in conversation like where it's like and this has happened you know we've sat and watched all sorts of things where it's like these people aren't good people and i think kids are actually more capable of understanding that or these people did bad things kids are capable of understanding that because they do bad things but they're not bad people yeah i understand but i but i understand but here's the thing i'm not here's what i'm saying all this stuff dies on the vine all all comedy dies on the vine

eventually nobody's paying attention to the biggest you know whatever but right now as a person as people of my generation if you're black if that cosby stuff is in you you have to i can recognize that it's in me and i can recognize that even when i watch for the purposes of this doc and i sat and would watch like the dentist i would be like man look what he did there yeah but that doesn't for a second that's why i always talked about the other shoe dropping mean that i'm going to one forget about the survivors or two i'm not going to tweet out everybody i know there's a lot out there about Bill Cosby, but watch this clip from himself. Yeah, I know, I know, I know.

I know, I know, I know. I get it, I get it. But this bit. But I mean, for a second, because that would be naive and dumb on my part to do that. Yeah. But I don't think sitting here with myself, talking to trusted people in my life, I was talking about the way you text people in the group chat is not how you speak in the world, that there are ways to have those conversations that are ultimately and for me the purpose of having it is to go what can we learn from this and specifically

with cosby and show business how do we limit the damage of this right but but this is also an argument to be made for um that that woman's interpretation, the psychological interpretation, that like, yes, all this may be true, but clearly this guy was putting on a show to cover up the fact that he liked to do this other thing and he didn't live for it. Yes, Renee Graham, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's another way to teach your kids about show business. Exactly. You know, because the lesson you're trying to, like, the thing is is like there is a way to to have empathy for survivors to present this guy as a guy who was a a progressive and important voice yeah and and also you know had this horrible sickness this evil compulsion i don't even want to put it on because i feel like sickness makes it sound like that okay this

evil compulsion he did these things yes yes this predatory nature you know but like it's it's a delicate line because you're saying that how do we shift the the environment how do we make the environment so this doesn't happen when when so much about you know the ego of performing is about getting this love or doing these things or having this freedom to to take liberties that are are predatory and disgusting, you know, what becomes of it all if you can't just pathologize people and say, like, that guy was a fuck all the way around? This is how I think about it, is that I think showbiz encourages everybody below the top of the call sheet to look the other way, just generally.

Right. But what Mo Ryan was speaking to and what correct is that she said is that this is this is a uh it's intentional corporate oversight yes in the name of profit and i was happy that she said it she said toss the whole industry into the motherfucking sun which was like my like i want that on a t-shirt yes that that i we i really did not want this to and it may have skewed this way because it's about cosby to be about one bad guy it's about one bad guy in an industry that that allowed him to be a bad guy yeah but but yeah but but the corporate decision making about like decision making is like here we get it yeah there's a problem yeah but uh we can still make a little money yeah no for sure and i think you know the thing i've been saying is that you know when they

built show business they didn't go before we making dreams, where do we put the human resources department? No. And so for me, it's about prioritizing that version of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That priority. Before we start making dreams, we've got to realize there's going to be a lot of dream debris. Exactly, yeah. And we need to figure out, what do we do with all that dream debris?

The dream debris, yeah. The off-gas of dreams. The broken hearts and busted people. Yeah. Criminal criminal intentions showbiz has never done a good job of that and we come out of the comedy club world where it's like you know where there's like you've seen the thing on the like in the green where it says don't have sex with the wait staff or whatever and that's that's the human resources department is please don't do that yeah someone's not coming back to this club again yeah yeah okay so uh now what what what's the pushback then i mean you know i have like i you know i've withdrawn from lots of social media just

because i because i there's no reason to sort of like i mean to be fair i don't read all the good reviews either but i definitely am like there are there i stumbled across and i didn't watch it but like youtube because it knows i care about bill cosby and me, will share, look at this video. An hour and a half long video about how W. Kamau Bell is the guy we need to talk about and not Bill Cosby. Why? Yeah. And you just go, all right, I'm going to go ahead and just skip that one. So there are certainly people.

And I've seen some articles because Showtime shares the breaks of all the things that are coming out and they're all good but there are certainly uh people in show business and people out of show business people cultural commentators and many who were black who just who i don't believe have seen it but even they have you know there's videos where you know i'm a sellout or i'm a or i've i'm an industry shill or i've or i've been hired to take down a black man uh-huh and again if you have if you see it you know, I'm a sellout or I'm a, or I've, I'm an industry shill or I've, or I've been hired to take down a black man. And again, if you have, if you see it, you know,

I'm not taking down a black man, but also like there's been people who are like, even if he did those bad things, why are we talking about it now? What's the point? Yeah. And for me, it's like America does a good job of never thinking it's time to have the big

conversation. So I just feel like that we're talking about now cause we're talking about it now and it needs to be talked about. And if you don't, and if you don't want to make and the thing I've said that I've seen clipped in other places is like what we're doing because there's also this idea that this is all white women it's not we address that in the piece that if you say we don't want to if you're prioritizing this if you're prioritizing this one black man's voice third a third of the survivors are black women why are we

prioritizing his voice over their voices and so for me it's like the pushback is you know is from a type of person who is always going to ride for black men over black women and also made more complicated back to the black guy who made it is married to a white woman so like i'm i'm not a lot from a lot of people that off top i can't be trusted huh yeah uh so you got it you're carrying a lot i'm carrying i mean you know uh this is not a i didn't release a marvel movie yeah you know and and that wouldn't be and i also understand that like what i'm getting is not anything close to what a lot of survivors get but they have actually reached out to me to sort of see they get they got my back so it's great but yeah it is there's

a part of this is like it's the best reviewed thing my back. So it's great. But yeah, there's a part of this that is like, it's the best reviewed thing I've ever released. It's the most acclaiming thing that's ever gotten that I've released. But I can't just sit here and celebrate it because it's about some pretty intense shit that for the rest of my life, I'm going to walk into rooms

and have some people go, that motherfucker. And so it's like, and I say that to my wife and my friends, like, yeah, I can't, because there is some sense of like, yay. And I'm like, I'm not. I don't know if I'll ever be there. I'm happy that there are people receiving the work the way it was intended. I'm happy that the survivors who are in it, all I've heard from,

are really appreciated. And they've been able to watch it, even though it's not just about that. So I feel like there is building that can come off this work. And people feel like I accomplished a very difficult thing to do in some sense. And I know it's not perfect, but it's also like, you know, as I said to my best friend, Jason, I'm like, well, at least I'm not the black guy who talked to the Klan anymore. Like my my my my obit is going to have a different starting line now. Well, I mean, I think these are just, it's the cost of doing something like this. It's the,

it's the cost of, of putting yourself out there, taking the risk and, and, and, and, you know, and trying to,

uh, you know, present something in a, in a journalistic way. That's provocative. It's always going to be, you know, this fucking guy.

Yeah, no. And I, and I, the funny thing for me is that like, I'm literally just a dude who was like i love bill cosby and i love eddie murphy and i hope one day to be on saturday night live like that was that's where this all started that's where this all started so i your career

in comedy yeah yeah so i just was like i so i sit here sometimes like how did this and how did what like whose idea was all of this a lot of it has to do with you know a a sense it just a quest for you know justice in general yeah you know and and also the the a quest for you know the progress well yeah these are ideas i would be wrestling with on my own and grew up with and now i'm in the yes and now i'm in the position where i can wrestle with them in my work so it's like it's not like i wouldn't it's not like somebody came to me, like some people were like, Hollywood made him do this, or white Hollywood.

It's like, no, no, no. Even you and Eddie Murphy and Bill Cosby and SNL, by the time you started doing stand-up, that wasn't what you were doing. No, no, no. You were doing the other thing. It was too late. It was too late.

Yeah, yeah. I got shit to talk about. It was like, I gotta find my truth, and I gotta find my voice, and I got to find my voice, because I read prior convictions, and Richard Pryor said it's all about finding your voice. So I got to find the comedy octopus, I think he called it. I got to figure out the final.

Yeah, so I was always headed down the, even if I didn't know it. The truth path. Yeah. Good talking to you, man. Good job. Thanks, man. There you go. That's it. We Need to talk about cosby is now available on showtime always good to see kamau i'm alive i hope you're well here's some guitar like usual

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