Bill Cosby NBC Sitcom Deal Killed

In the wake of a torrent of sexual abuse allegations against Bill Cosby, NBC has scrapped its plan for a sitcom with the actor and comedian. The 77-year-old Cosby was supposed to play a patriarchal figure with 3 married daughters and various grandkids, who would dispense “classic wisdom on relationships and parenthood.” Well, that is not happening now, although it has been reported that Cosby is not going away empty-handed. A penalty (said to be as high as a million dollars) was part of the contract in the event the project did not go forward and, whatever it really is, he will no doubt be paid it.

Additionally, TV Land is pulling reruns of The Cosby Show, effective immediately, and Netflix has chosen to postpone a special it was set to air on Nov. 28 entitled “Bill Cosby at 77”.

It has been a matter of record for years that Cosby settled a civil lawsuit with a woman named Andrea Constant in 2006 out of court. She claimed that Cosby drugged and raped her in 2004 and there were some 13 women willing to testify with similar stories of sexual misdeeds. But that was 2006. Evidently, whatever effect it may have had in damaging Cosby’s standing as a revered family man type wasn’t enough to prevent NBC from deciding he would be an asset to another family sitcom.

More recently, however, comedian Hannibal Burress called Cosby a rapist during his standup act and this led to a twitter backlash against Cosby. A woman named Barbara Bowman, who is said to be one of the 13 willing to testify 8 years ago, wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post asking why it took a male comedian for anyone to believe her rape allegations after 30 years.

Then Joan Tarshis, a music industry publicist and journalist, told Hollywood Elsewhere that Cosby similarly abused her. Model Janice Dickinson, in an ET exclusive, was the third woman to join her voice with allegations of being drugged and violated by Cosby.

Cosby attorney, Martin Singer, has vehemently denied all of these stories except, of course, the Constand lawsuit settlement. Buzzfeed published a letter it received from Singer threatening legal action with particular reference to Janice Dickinson’s allegations (the “Story”). Meantime the AP has put up a video showing Cosby trying to bully a reporter into “scuttling” the part of his interview where he refused to talk about these matters back on November 6th.