‘Hey, Bungalow Bill, What Did Ya Kill?’ Cosby Speaks For the First Time in Years

Wild Bill Cosby – who was finally accused by enough women of rape that the world began to believe them – spoke for the first time in two years.

Michael Smerconish, whose name sounds like a Rick and Morty placeholder that made it to final cut, is a real journalist who interviews presidents and even has his own SiriusXM radio show about the President of the United States, which has got to be a roiling shit show right about now.

WE ARE ENTERING DAY 116 OF THE DONALD TRUMP PRESIDENCY, AND I CAN TELL YOU RIGHT NOW, IT’S A NUMBER I NEVER THOUGHT I’D SEE SCRATCHED INTO A HUMAN ARM.

https://youtu.be/Nwb0ip_RnGI

He approached his questions to Cosby very carefully, but deliberately and professionally. Any journalist worth a damn is nodding along as they listen.

It was anything but promotion for his next album. For a man whose attorney advised him not to discuss the charges, Cosby had an awful lot to say about the allegations.

While Cosby could not agree with his daughter that the charges against him are baseless and the court of public opinion has already declared him guilty, he did permit the possibility that race has played some part in his vilification.

“That’s her opinion,” cosby said, adding that it “could be” racism.

“Don’t you want to testify, and tell your story?” Smerconish asked.

“No,” Cosby replied.

“Why not?” Smerconish asked.

Cosby rolled the answer around in his mouth, before finally arriving at, “My lawyers are scrambling.”

Smerconish – fuck it, his name is Michael – Michael pushed on, asking very softly for a blanket response to Cosby’s alleged victims: “They’re all lying?”

“You know better than that,” Cosby said.

“Meaning you can’t answer that question,” Michael said, “or you won’t answer that question?”

“I won’t, and I cannot answer that. It’s really not fair and you know that, because all I have to do is say something similar to that and the next thing I know, the postman is carrying a big bag – whoever it is – is saying ‘defamation, defamation, defamation.'” Cosby said, “I want people to understand my work as an artist, performer, I owe a great deal to people who saw things in me and in many ways – in many ways – I returned the favors. And Gloria Steinem had a very interesting quote. She said, ‘The truth shall set you free. But first it might piss you off.’ And I have said a lot of things to people trying to give them the truth, trying to move them in a direction away from apathy, from fear, to guide them in strength, in a belief about what they fear about themselves. and I’ve taken some hits from people who are supposed to be watching out for people like this. And I do feel that right now, right now as I speak to you, I want to get back to the laughter and the enjoyment of things that I’ve written and things that I perform on stage, and then I want to take other things and move it to halls, churches, etc. etc. to give what I feel will be motivational and informational and drive people to make changes in themselves, the home life, because the one quote that I sustain is the revolution is in the home.”

When you speak of your desire to be out there and talking about change that’s necessary on the home front, and so forth – the way you just put it – it reminds me of that decision in this case: You’re in the position that you’re in today because a deposition that you gave a decade ago, in a case that was settled, came back to haunt you. And it came back to haunt you because a federal judge said, [paraphrasing] ‘If bill Cosby is gonna be out there on his soapbox speaking about moral virtue, then it’s fair for this deposition to be used against him.’ From a legal standpoint, I thought that was a wrong decision, and I said so at the time. Do you want to comment on that underlying decision which played a pretty significant role in the position in which you find yourself?”

“I have an emotion about what the judge did,” Cosby said, “And I’m still very much confused about how that came about, and then caused whatever is happening today.”

“In other words,” Michael said, “You thought you had a deal, that case was over, and the facts of it were done?”

“No,” Cosby said, with an untimely Dr. Hibbert chuckle. “It’s the way it was put out and the way many people saw it, and you just said it, and I think the safest way to put it is, uh, I agree with you…yeah, I just hope I’m not in trouble now, man.”

Cosby went on to thank SiriusXM, who allowed him to be interviewed by Jeff Foxworthy, who agreed to only discuss comedy.