Chelsea Handler isn’t the first person in this new Esquire interview to bring up Bill Cosby. It’s Nick Offerman, of Parks and Recreation fame, who shares the cover with her, who invokes Cosby’s name.
In response to a question from Esquire’s Scott Rabb that asks, in part, “Do you believe that if you are in a committed relationship with someone, you are entitled to have sex on a regular basis?”, Handler probes further, “What if they were sleeping?” Offerman’s reply: “Then anything goes. Dealer’s choice. Or if they have been Cosbyed, that’s a different story.”
So, Cosby is a verb now. You can Jennifer Lawrence up the steps, you can Yoko a band, and now, it seems, you can Cosby a person: Cosby is officially — or, officially-colloquially — shorthand for drugging and raping someone.
Raab’s response to Offerman’s term of art is “poor guy,” probably the worst thing he could have said, considering the context. But maybe it’s a good thing he said it, because it triggered this reaction from Handler:
CH: What do you mean poor guy?!
SR: I was just throwing that out there.
CH: Not poor guy — he tried to Cosby me… I was in Atlantic City playing, doing stand-up, and he was doing stand-up in Atlantic City in the same hotel, and at like three o’clock in the afternoon, someone from the hotel came down and said, “Oh, you know, Mr. Cosby would really like to meet you up in his hotel suite.” And I thought, That’s really weird. This was like ten years ago. And I said, That’s really weird. I don’t want to go alone. I go, I don’t know him. So the three guys I was with — thank God these guys were with me… I brought them up with me to his room and thank God I did, because now I know what would’ve happened if I went up there alone. And I forgot about it when all the stories about Bill Cosby came out. I was like, I didn’t even think of it. Then my friend texted me the other day saying, “Do you remember that night we went up to, or that afternoon we went up to Bill Cosby’s and you were so freaked out you made us come with you?” And I said, Yeah, and he said, “Hello! You could’ve been one of his victims if we weren’t there.” And I went, “Oh my gosh …” Yeah, so yeah, he’s guilty.
SR: I never presumed otherwise.
CH: Yeah, I think it’s pretty obvious now.
The statute of limitations on most of the cases against Cosby expired long ago; most of the women who have come forward don’t seem to expect that Cosby will be punished by the law. It’s not clear if Cosby will ever see a day in court for his alleged crimes, even as the number of accusers rises. But here in the court of public opinion, it seems that the jury is in: the widely-agreed-upon view of Cosby is that he’s guilty. For someone making a living as an entertainer — for someone whose brand has long been that of a beloved, warm father figure — that expulsion from the audience’s good graces is its own kind of prison.
Cosby has had control of his own narrative for decades: the voices of his accusers were readily dismissed, silenced. He had all the power. But Cosby has been incapable of articulating a compelling defense, or even of maintaining branding that isn’t disgusting and tone-deaf (just a thought: probably not a good idea to call that stand-up tour “Far From Finished”). His statements contradict themselves; he is never not pleading the fifth. He tries to get everyone talking about the “real” story, like what he considers to be the the failures of “black media”. He answers direct questions with silence.
There was a narrative vacuum of Cosby’s own creation. The stories of over two dozen women have filled it.