We Need To Talk About Cosby (2022) Official Teaser | SHOWTIME Documentary Series
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We Need to Talk About Cosby Wrestles With a Fractured Legacy
W. Kamau Bell has made a thought-provoking docuseries that reckons with the two Bill Cosbys — up to a point.
www.vulture.com
W. Kamau Bell Wants to Keep the Cosby Conversation Going
His new docuseries enlists scholars and survivors to grapple with the man who “worked as hard at his predation as he worked at his career.”
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This is a valuable lesson in how people will kick you when you're down, even if they owe their career to you.
Cosby literally laid the groundwork for Kamau Bell and all these other backstabbers to have a career in entertainment. Wasn't Bell a comedian?
All Cosby has done for HBCUS...gave his time, money, gave them free exposure on his TV shows and on tours.
Man I wish I could talk to him, not for an interview, just for a private conversation.
Cosby literally laid the groundwork for Kamau Bell and all these other backstabbers to have a career in entertainment. Wasn't Bell a comedian?
All Cosby has done for HBCUS...gave his time, money, gave them free exposure on his TV shows and on tours.
Man I wish I could talk to him, not for an interview, just for a private conversation.
Bell is well aware that many folks in The Black Community are now looking at him with a side eye.
Hell, he says here that there were Black celebs who essentially told him to "kick rocks", when he approached them about being in the documentary.
But in spite of that; the brother plugged along and made his film & will definitely earn his socio-political acolytes and pats on his back from the "right" people....
Hell, he says here that there were Black celebs who essentially told him to "kick rocks", when he approached them about being in the documentary.
But in spite of that; the brother plugged along and made his film & will definitely earn his socio-political acolytes and pats on his back from the "right" people....
To be fair, there have been plenty of movies and docs about the catholic church, including a pulitzer prize article in the Boston Globe and an academy award winning movie based on the article.
Apparently, he left out the part about choosing your side pieces and one night stands carefully when you are at his economic and career level.
It will be VERY easy for me skip. Just as easy for me to skip Leaving Neverland documentary (featuring two sue-for-profit LIARS) was easy for me to skip as well.
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Why W. Kamau Bell Worries His Cosby Doc Could End His Career
In this preview from next week’s episode of The Last Laugh podcast, W. Kamau Bell responds to the backlash his new project has been receiving—even before anyone has seen it.
Why W. Kamau Bell Worries His Bill Cosby Documentary Could End His Career
THE LAST LAUGH
In this preview from next week’s episode of The Last Laugh podcast, W. Kamau Bell responds to the backlash his new project has been receiving—even before anyone has seen it.
Matt Wilstein
Senior Writer
Updated Jan. 28, 2022 12:26PM ET Published Jan. 28, 2022 4:59AM ET
When I ask W. Kamau Bell how he’s feeling on the eve of his ambitious, four-part documentary We Need to Talk About Cosby, premiering on Showtime this coming Sunday night, he takes a deep breath and says, “I’m a big catastrophizer.”
“I learned from the movie Ghost Dog with Forest Whitaker that you have to imagine your worst defeat,” he adds with a laugh. “So I understand that it’s divisive just by nature, but I also don’t think when you watch it, it’s as divisive as you think it might be.”
Bell, who also hosts CNN’s United Shades of America and is a successful stand-up comedian in his own right, always knew that the “fiercest critics” of the docuseries would be people who are “never” going to watch it. “I see a lot of people who love it and a lot of people who hate it, who I’m very clear haven’t seen it,” he says in this preview of next week’s episode of The Last Laugh podcast. “And to be clear, you can watch it and hate it. I accept that.”
Despite the fact that, as we’re speaking, only a small handful of critics and Sundance attendees have had the chance to view We Need to Talk About Cosby, Bell has been receiving a rash of criticism from people who simply don’t understand why he would make a documentary about Bill Cosby in the first place.
“I see a lot of comments like, ‘How come there’s gotta be a documentary about Bill Cosby there ain’t ones about Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, Jeffrey Epstein, and other white men who r*pe women??’” Bell wrote on Instagram recently. “Well, they already made those… and more.”
The implication from his social media critics seemed to be, why should you, a Black man, spend so much time bringing down another Black man?
“To be honest, I was doing it before I even asked myself why,” he tells me. “It just felt like what I was supposed to do.”
And he knew the risks involved in exposing the ugly truth about a “multigenerational cultural icon for Black people,” having seen the death threats that shut down a premiere screening of dream hampton’s Surviving R. Kelly series or the continued furor over HBO’s Leaving Neverland documentary from Michael Jackson truthers.
“So I was prepared for it,” Bell says, “but it doesn’t make it fun.”
In a recent Time magazine essay that tried to wrestle with some of these issues, Bell candidly revealed that the Cosby docuseries “feels like it could be the end of my career.”
“To be fair, Matt, I’m still worried,” he tells me. “I don’t feel like I’m out of the woods yet. It’s not a superhero movie, so even if you love it, it doesn’t mean you want to see more from that guy.”
“I’m proud of the work overall,” Bell continues. “But Cosby is still a powerful figure in pop culture, even if he’s not as powerful as he was when The Cosby Show was around. And even people who believe, like I believe, that he sexually assaulted and raped women, publicly want to be looked at as either on his side or neutral. So I just know it might not be the best look to be seen with me.”
Referring to the provocative premiere of his CNN show, Bell adds, “I’m also the Black guy who hung out with the Klan, you know what I mean? I should have been like Kevin Hart and chose to hang out with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. I mean, I would love to hang out with all of them, but this probably gets me further away from that.”
Subscribe to The Last Laugh podcast now to hear our full conversation with W. Kamau Bell about his own personal history with Bill Cosby, the ‘Cosby Show’ cast members who refused to talk to him and more when it drops next Tuesday, February 1st.
Referring to the provocative premiere of his CNN show, Bell adds, “I’m also the Black guy who hung out with the Klan, you know what I mean? I should have been like Kevin Hart and chose to hang out with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. I mean, I would love to hang out with all of them, but this probably gets me further away from that.”
There it is. This dude specializes in being jealous of other Black Male comedians' success.
There it is. This dude specializes in being jealous of other Black Male comedians' success.
It’s amazing how shit changes up when folks get older or the money dries up. I saw some shit on tv where all the old playboy bunnies are going in on Hugh Hefner now. Now they are making him the new boogey man.
Not saying Hef or Cosby were saints, because I wasn’t there, but most people know what the fuck they sign up for. Now, years later you want to be outraged and shit. The truth is always a grey area and is not black and white like they are trying to make this shit out to be.
Not saying Hef or Cosby were saints, because I wasn’t there, but most people know what the fuck they sign up for. Now, years later you want to be outraged and shit. The truth is always a grey area and is not black and white like they are trying to make this shit out to be.
If nothing else, Youtubers will find the worst pic possible of you when creating a thumbnail
If nothing else, Youtubers will find the worst pic possible of you when creating a thumbnail
Just like the MSM does at times. One can sense the vitriol before words or audio are listened to.
A documentary interviewing some of the same women who would call the cops if they saw Bell and Jemele walking through their neighborhoods.
Did anyone watch all 4 eps? I just finished last night.
What did you think?
I have watched zero and have no interest in a hit job that doesn't even pretend to be a conversation.
Takeaways:
A comedian who felt betrayed by Bill
It wasn't a total hit piece.
Bill did that shit.
Bill is thought he'd get away with it like rich white men.
I still don't believe all of the women.
I still respect and appreciate what he did for Black America.
Fuck Gloria Allred. Can't wait for her to be exposed.
I saw Part Two last night (I missed part one) and I was skeptical of these allegations at first but after hearing these women's stories, I believe this rape shit really happened. Bill C was a huge influence for me growing up but watching that shit kinda fucked me up. I lost MAJOR respect for Bill after watching that. 
"Many may wonder why we need to even discuss Cosby’s accomplishments given the sexual assaults. But for Bell, who can’t remember a time in his life when Cosby wasn’t relevant, it’s about acknowledging key parts of Black American and entertainment history reflected in Cosby’s work–while simultaneously learning from the victims of his crimes."We Need To Talk About Cosby" is the title of Kamau Bell's documentary. The question I would have for him is WHY???
Bell holds a unique position being the person to tell this story, being that he shares so many identities with Cosby: man, comedian, and Black public figure in America. Still, initially, it didn’t occur to him that it was significant that this story be told from the lens of someone like him.
“I was making a thing about my hero, trying to reckon with what I now believed about all the assaults and allegations,” Bell said. “I didn’t think it needs to be a Black man who does this until other people–specifically women told me– ‘It means something that you’re not waiting for a woman to do this work, that you’re not waiting for a survivor to do this work.’ They also knew that me being a man and a Black man, I’m going to see different things and highlight different things that other filmmakers wouldn’t do.”
You should watch part one before part 3 if you get a chance. Btw Godfrey was funny. I wouldn't mind watching his whole interview.I saw Part Two last night (I missed part one) and I was skeptical of these allegations at first but after hearing these women's stories, I believe this rape shit really happened. Bill C was a huge influence for me growing up but watching that shit kinda fucked me up. I lost MAJOR respect for Bill after watching that.
What can you expect from a man who exchanged pleasantries with the Klan? Cosby was accused, tried, convicted and served prison time. The need for Bell to further denigrate the man was what again? Oh, because we must revisit and rehash the accusations from a black man's perspective. I can just imagine his white wife told him, "Darling this is something you must do". Cosby committed grievous offenses and paid dearly for doing so, but evidently that is not enough for Bell and his white backers who want Cosby totally destroyed. 
Bell wants that Candace chedda to make it mo' bedda
What We Know About the Women Sent to Bill Cosby’s Dressing Room
Here’s what we’ve learned from people involved in The Cosby Show — including Cosby himself.
www.vulture.com
What We Know About the Models Sent to Bill Cosby’s Dressing Room
By Jennifer Zhan
Photo: Joe McNally/Getty Images
Bill Cosby cemented his nickname and reputation as “America’s Dad” with his role as Cliff Huxtable, the beloved father on NBC’s 1984–1992 hit series The Cosby Show. Today, however, the comedian is known for dozens of allegations of sexual assault against him (all of which he has continuously denied). Cosby served nearly three years in prison for sexual assault before being released in 2021; the conviction was overturned because a prosecutor had promised not to charge him.
W. Kamau Bell’s four-part Showtime docuseries, We Need to Talk About Cosby, tracks Cosby’s rise and fall from public grace. The third episode, out February 13, focuses on the success of The Cosby Show and includes allegations that Cosby behaved inappropriately on the very set where he built his reputation as a wholesome father. The show began filming in Brooklyn but eventually moved to a larger studio in Queens. By then, much of America was familiar with the Huxtables and their weekly antics. According to the documentary, the highest-rated episode of The Cosby Show had 65 million viewers, about a quarter of the U.S. population at the time.
Some women have alleged that Cosby made unwanted advances toward them on set. Multiple people who worked on the show, both on and off camera, described the constant presence of young models in the show’s audience. Here, a list of people involved in the show — including Cosby himself — who have acknowledged the arrangement that regularly brought models to Cosby’s dressing room.
Steve Watkins
Watkins was a director’s assistant on The Cosby Show. In We Need to Talk About Cosby, he said that around 200 people would be in the stands for live show tapings. “But then you’d get to this one pocket where there’s about 20, 25 women dressed to the nines,” he said. “They’re all models, and they look it.” A modeling agency would bring them over to “talk to Mr. C,” according to Watkins. “His dressing room was always open,” he said. “Not then.”
Frank Scotti
Scotti worked as a facilities manager at NBC’s studio in Brooklyn and later became Cosby’s personal assistant. In 2014, Scotti told the New York Daily News that he was tasked with standing guard at the door when Cosby had models in his dressing room. Scotti claims the owner of a Manhattan agency, ostensibly a woman named Sue Charney, would deliver models as young as 16 to the set. He said that Cosby would pick one, saying he wanted to interview her for a part in the show. “The owner just walked right out,” Scotti said. He claimed she “knew exactly what was going to go on. Then Cosby would tell me, ‘Stand outside the door and don’t let anyone in.’”
Scotti said he came forward because he “felt sorry for the women” making allegations against Cosby. During a Today interview, Cosby’s former right-hand man maintained that he didn’t know what happened in the dressing room but said he felt “dirty” and “like a pimp.”
Michelle Hurd
In 2014, actress Hurd wrote in a since-deleted Facebook post that Cosby was “VERY inappropriate” with her when she did stand-in work on The Cosby Show. “It started innocently, lunch in his dressing room, daily, then onto weird acting exercises [where] he would move his hands up and down my body,” she alleged. Hurd said that she started to “take notice” after she refused an invitation to Cosby’s house. She began talking to another stand-in actress on the set who claimed that Cosby was “doing the same thing to her, almost by the numbers.”
Eden Tirl
In We Need to Talk About Cosby, Tirl said that her modeling and acting agent introduced her to Cosby in 1989 after bringing her to set to watch a taping of The Cosby Show. She was later informed that she had been given a role as a police officer on the show. She said she felt uncomfortable when, despite only having around three lines, she was given her own dressing room. (Joseph C. Phillips, who had a recurring role, said he never had a dressing room of his own, and once had to share a storage closet with a co-star.)
In the middle of rehearsal on her first day, Tirl said Frank Scotti walked up to her and told her Cosby wanted her to have lunch in his dressing room. She said she was “led off the set” to Cosby’s dressing room, where she ate alone. When Scotti came up to her again the next day, Tirl said she refused to leave. Allegedly, two people dismissed her concerns, telling her, “Just go. This happens all the time, just go.”
According to Tirl, Cosby did not appear in his dressing room until the third day that she was summoned. Tirl alleged that he came in, closed the door, and locked it. “And he just said really pointedly, Eden, you know that you could have anything you wanted, right? You do understand who I am,” she said. Tirl said she rejected the comedian, telling him she associated him with Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids and Jell-O Pudding Pops. According to Tirl, Cosby’s mood soured and he said, “Don’t say that to me. They all say that to me.”
He allegedly then had her perform an acting exercise where he mirrored her movements from behind, which she said felt “very oppressive” and “sexual.” Tirl alleged that Cosby wrapped her in his arms and told her they had just “made love,” then told her she could leave. Tirl said she believes she was not the first person this happened to. “A lot of people [on set] knew,” she said. “Because you can’t do what he did unless you have other people supporting what you’re doing.”
Bill Cosby
Photo: Jacques M. Chenet/Corbis via Getty Images
In 2015, portions of a 1,000-page transcript of a deposition Cosby gave over four days in 2005 and 2006 for a sexual assault lawsuit became public. Cosby stated in the deposition that every week Sue Charney’s modeling agency would send five or six models to the studio where The Cosby Show was taped. Nicole Weisensee Egan published an excerpt of the transcript in her book Chasing Cosby: The Downfall of America’s Dad. In it, Cosby described the demographic of the models as “young women,” many of whom were from out of state and were “financially not doing well.” Cosby said he and Charney “agreed that it might be nice if they would come on the Thursday and see the show and have dinner between shows.”
According to Cosby, the models were provided with a “very, very good meal” in his dressing room that was likely “better than anything they’d had” in New York so far. He said that he felt he was sent models who hadn’t done as well as expected or hadn’t reached their potential. “And for the time and the work and some money that [Charney] put into them, this was sort of like a present,” he said. Cosby said that some young women came to these dinners more than once, and that he gave some of them jobs as extras on the show.
Alice Opell
By the time Cosby’s deposition was unsealed, Sue Charney had died. Her sister, Opell, acknowledged the arrangement in the Washington Post in 2015, but cast doubt on the extent of Charney’s involvement. “I don’t think she knew what was going on,” she said. “She did it as a courtesy he requested, that the models attend the taping.”
Helen Gumpel
Gumpel (née Selby) appeared in a guest role as a member of Clair Huxtable’s book club on The Cosby Show in 1987. The former fashion model and actress held a news conference in 2015 and came forward with allegations against Cosby.
Gumpel stated that after her guest spot, her agent received a call that Cosby wanted to meet her for what she thought was an audition for another part. She alleged that after Cosby hugged and kissed her in front of studio onlookers, she was sent to his dressing room. According to Gumpel, the comedian opened the door in a “loosely tied robe” and had her sit on the couch. He handed her a drink and put “his crotch area” in her face, she alleged. Gumpel said that Cosby got physically angry when she refused his advances and kept pressing the drink toward her. She claimed he eventually walked to the door and told her to leave.
Kaya Thompson
Jennifer “Kaya” Thompson told People she visited a modeling agency in New York City at 17 in 1988 — this would have been halfway through The Cosby Show’s run, at the height of the comedian’s fame. According to Thompson, she was sent to Queens right away to meet Cosby on the set of The Cosby Show. She told other outlets that this happened within an hour of her visit to the modeling agency. In 2014, Thompson accused Cosby of an unwanted sexual encounter at his home in the late ’80s.
Lili Bernard
Bernard, who has accused Cosby of sexual assault, guest-starred as one of Cliff Huxtable’s pregnant clients on the last season of The Cosby Show in 1992. She previously played a part with no lines in a 1988 episode. Bernard noted the constant presence of models on set during her interview in We Need to Talk About Cosby. “There was always a long line of beautiful women, all different shades … I mean, the whole gamut, the whole rainbow of the human race,” she said. “Yeah, they were lined up outside of his dressing room, poor things, going in and out.”
Joseph C. Phillips
Phillips played Martin Kendall on three seasons of The Cosby Show. In 2015, Phillips published a since-deleted blog post titled “Of Course Bill Cosby Is Guilty!” In it, he wrote that there was a seemingly “unending parade of pretty young women that streamed through the studio. In fact, that is what some of us called it — the parade. Light skinned. ‘Good’ hair. One prettier than the next.”
In We Need to Talk About Cosby, Phillips stated that models would sit in a row in the stands, and again described the models as “a parade” going to Cosby’s dressing room. “I don’t know what went on, and then they would go out. It was just kind of like the air,” he said with a laugh. “You know, it was there, and everybody knew it.”
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